


Breathing

by wrackspurtsnargles



Category: Naruto
Genre: Depression, Found Family, Friendship, Gen, Isekai - I think it's called?, OC woke up in the Naruto world as a three-year-old and he wants to go home, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Semi Self-Insert
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:29:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 31,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25592821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wrackspurtsnargles/pseuds/wrackspurtsnargles
Summary: It takes Takahiro everything he has to keep his head above the surface even as he drowns. Everything is so foreign and wrong in this dream that’s not a dream, and sometimes, when he’s looking down at the churning waters of the Naka, it feels as if it would be easier to just give up, but-Everyone is trying so hard to make everything right and...If they can try, so can he.
Relationships: OC & Uchiha Sasuke, OC & Uzumaki Naruto, Other Relationship Tags to Be Added
Comments: 87
Kudos: 267





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my second attempt at writing a fic for Naruto (the first died after the second chapter when I realized I'd been overexcited and hadn't planned a thing) so there may be mistakes, but I had fun writing it so here it is!
> 
> Enjoy :)

He opens his eyes to the sound of the orphanage matron’s voice and it takes him a couple of seconds to remember where he is. The room is too large, too empty, too foreign and for a second, it’s too much. He can’t _breathe_. 

It feels like the walls are closing in on him, like they’re collapsing in on themselves, folding like wet paper, and he stares at the white, white, _white_ until his eyes begin to water. He doesn’t close them though, not even when they start to hurt, because if he closes them and opens them again only to find the same walls, the same white, he’ll have to admit it.

He’s still caught in the dream. 

_It’s been six years already._

In the end, the stinging in his eyes wins out. He shuts his eyes, and he can breathe again. He isn’t quite sure if that’s a good thing though, especially not when the scent of trees, of grass, of _green_ that shouldn’t be so easy to smell in the city, is melded into the scent of rain in the air that he breathes in and out. But then again, the village isn’t a city and the smell of green is only natural to the civilians, to the shinobi, and to little Murakami Takahiro who was born and raised in Konoha for as long as anyone can remember.

… Except that’s not true. He remembers waking up after that terrifying night, caught under the rubble of what might have once been a house. He remembers being found by what he now supposes are shinobi and he remembers being held carefully by a man in a tight sleeveless black shirt with a mask over his face. He remembers being sent to the orphanage, lying in a crib with dozens of other children wailing around him, only for the number to lessen when their surviving families came looking for them, until there were only thirty or so left. Still too much, but it was better than the dozens there had been.

But he also remembers what came before - before he woke up to find bricks and wood and ash and blood. He remembers walking home after school with his sister, teasing and laughing, sometimes apologizing when he’s gone too far and she ends up in tears. He remembers graduating from high school and moving to the city, away from all that he knows and being both scared but excited because he’s young and wants more. He remembers feeling suffocated, surrounded by buildings that were too tall and too grey, covering the sky and looming over him. He remembers climbing up the stairs to the top of the building, panting and sweating, and feeling so very free when he looks around and sees the cars and people and trees, barely a speck on the ground so far below.

He remembers a life he once had and how he woke up to find he had lost everything to a dream.

The smell of trees, of grass, of fresh air, of the country is something both soothing and foreign, and he hates the dissonance. Sometimes, when he works on his homework at the quiet dango shop an hour or so away from the academy, he thinks it’s his life from before that’s a dream - a long, long dream dreamt up in childish fantasy by someone too old for his body. But then there are times when he’s convinced it’s this life that’s the dream, and he can barely work up the energy to pull himself out of bed because _what’s the point when nothing is real?_

Sometimes he wonders whether everything will stop if he stops too, and he stares down at the Naka River rushing below his feet, white foam rising from the black and blue and grey. But there’s always the _‘what if?’_ and he’s never brave enough to take that one step forward.

He doesn’t live but he’s too scared to die and he doesn’t know what to do.

“Takahiro-kun, we need to go to school.”

His roommate shakes his shoulders and- is it already that late? He knows he should get out of bed - and he means to, he really does - but after what feels like seconds, he hears nothing but silence and realizes his roommate has already left. 

It’s eight-twenty and class starts in ten minutes. 

Is there really a point in going when he’ll be late anyway?

Takahiro stares at the clock, the hands moving too slowly, too quickly, until finally, he pulls himself up. Everything aches with the smallest movements and it takes him ages to pull on clothing that might not be respectable enough, but he can’t bring himself to care. 

It’s almost nine when he finally makes his way out the door. 

The matron glances at him once before looking away to tuck in one of the younger children’s shirt. Takahiro’s socks don’t match and there’s a smudge on his sleeve from who-knows-when but the matron doesn’t offer to help, and Takahiro doesn’t ask. They both know Takahiro’s a lost cause and neither one of them is willing to do anything about it.

The forty-minute walk to the academy takes over an hour. It feels like less than a quarter of that time, though, and it’s far too soon when he finally walks into the classroom to find the instructor giving a lecture on something or other.

“You’re late, Takahiro-kun.”

Katsumi-sensei looks disappointed and Takahiro keeps his eyes fixed on that spot on the wall where it looks like someone tried to paint over a splotch but accidentally used the wrong colour. He doesn’t know why he can’t look at Katsumi-sensei. He doesn’t have trouble with staring at any of the matrons until they look away first, but he can’t stand looking at Katsumi-sensei with his pale blond hair and pink eyes that are _unnatural, wrong, shouldn’t exist-_

“I’m sorry.”

Katsumi-sensei doesn’t say anything more but Takahiro can hear him sigh. He makes his way past the snickering children, who whisper and stare, until he finds an empty seat somewhere near the back of the class. 

Sometimes it feels like he’s trapped in a cage, put on exhibition for the other children’s entertainment. Far too often it feels like the other way around. He’s watching everything happen from behind a thick wall of glass - words are muffled so they’re nothing more than white noise, and it always comes as a surprise when a hand wraps around his wrist, a shoulder bumps against his, fingers brush against the back of his hand. 

They’re grounding, those touches - but in a way that drags him under the surface, making him sink all the way to the bottom of the river. 

Sometimes it feels like he can’t breathe.

He reaches into his bag only to find he has forgotten to bring his books. There isn’t anything to distract him as he stares down at his hands, too small, too pale, too young, until he feels sick and hides them under the desk where he won’t have to see.

He stays that way until the day ends and he’s the only one left in the classroom.

“Takahiro-kun, a moment please.”

Takahiro blinks - he doesn’t remember seeing Katsumi-sensei walk up to him, but then again, he barely remembers anything these days - and focuses on the man standing in front of him.

“Can I help you.”

It comes out less curious and more exhausted, which basically sums up how he feels about the situation. 

Katsumi-sensei gives a small frown that tugs at his eyebrows and- he has a small scar just above his left eye. Has it always been there?

“You were late today.”

Takahiro doesn’t bother to answer. He knows he was late. He’s always late. 

“Later than usual.”

Was he? 

“Is there something wrong?”

Katsumi-sensei’s left hand twitches just the slightest bit and that’s how Takahiro knows this is what he really wants to ask. 

He doesn’t answer, though, and just stares up at the man with callouses on his hands from training with weapons meant to kill and torture and maim. Nothing is wrong, not in the sense Katsumi-sensei wants to know, but at the same time, everything is in every sense that matters. 

_Nothing’s wrong_ , he wants to say. _Everything’s wrong_ , he wants to scream.

“Takahiro-kun?” Katsumi-sensei asks again, and his tongue grows heavy and thick in his mouth.

“I’m fine.”

The words come out too slow, too slurred, too flat, and he knows Katsumi-sensei will never believe him. He doesn’t need to be believed though, and Takahiro watches as Katsumi-sensei’s lips tighten into a thin line.

“If anything’s wrong, anything at all, I’m here to help. You know that, don’t you?”

Does he? Does he know for sure that, when he closes his eyes, he won’t open them again to find himself in a foreign land surrounded by strangers?

No. He doesn’t. But he doesn’t say any of that aloud because he’s a coward and he’s too scared of what that might mean.

Katsumi-sensei takes his silence as an answer he never gave but knew, and Takahiro watches as his shoulders slump. 

_Amateur_ , he thinks. Shinobi aren’t supposed to show their emotions like that, especially not in front of eight-year-olds who shouldn’t be able to tell tired apart from disappointed. 

“Okay. Okay,” Katsumi-sensei rubs a hand over his face and shoos Takahiro away, “You can go now. At least try to arrive before nine tomorrow, alright?”

He doesn’t understand that Takahiro _does_ try. He never means to be late, he never means to forget his books, he never means turn in his homework blank with only the barest signs of someone looking it over. But what he means or doesn’t mean isn’t important when there is nothing left to show. He still nods before leaving, because he can hear the exhaustion in Katsumi-sensei’s voice, and even if he knows he’ll be late again tomorrow, he can at least pretend for the day.

His feet take him through the winding streets of Konoha, past the lively stores and houses, buildings too small and homey compared to what he’s used to. He walks and walks, shoulders weighed down by more than what’s in his bag, until he comes to a stop at the edge of a cliff that’s too high and jagged.

The Naka River rushes below his feet as if it _needs_ to go somewhere, and he leans forward, trying to see where it’s going, trying to see the end, when someone grabs the back of his collar, nearly knocking him off his feet.

“Whoa! You okay?”

He’s dangling in the grip of a boy he doesn’t recognize, but it doesn’t take much effort to guess what clan he’s from. Black hair, black eyes, too pretty and loud to be a Nara. 

Takahiro stares at the Uchiha and thinks, I’m tired.

The Uchiha tilts his head at him curiously, before setting him down, a safe distance away from the edge of the cliff.

“You okay?” he asks again, and it’s only belatedly that Takahiro remembers he hasn’t answered. 

“I’m fine.”

“Great. That’s great,” the Uchiha says brightly as he nods like a deranged woodpecker. Takahiro stares until the Uchiha slows to a stop.

“Academy?” The other boy, who’s both older and younger than Takahiro, gestures towards his bag and Takahiro nods, a little too slowly to be considered normal. The Uchiha doesn’t seem to care, though, and he beams down at him.

“My cousin goes to the Academy too! You might be in the same class - have you heard of Sasuke? Uchiha Sasuke?”

He doesn’t recognize the name, but then again he doesn’t really know anyone in his class either so he supposes he can’t be sure.

“No? That’s fine, I’ll just ask Sasuke-chan if he knows you. What’s your name?”

“Murakami Takahiro.”

“Takahiro-chan, huh?”

He doesn’t know when they start walking, but the Uchiha is steering him away from the river with a hand on his shoulder, and it takes everything Takahiro has to keep himself from shying away. It’s heavy and warm, too warm, and he doesn’t know what to do.

“Don’t think I’ve ever heard Sasuke-chan talk about you. Not that that’s a bad thing. I mean, Sasuke-chan never really talks about anyone, you know?”

He can’t hear the river anymore, and that leaves something empty and aching in his chest and he doesn’t know what to think about that. Maybe, if the Uchiha hadn’t shown up, today might have been the day he let go. But then again, he’s felt that way for months now and hasn’t taken that step yet, so he doesn’t know.

“Itachi-chan worries he doesn’t have any friends so he keeps trying to get Sasuke-chan to open up, but that only means Sasuke-chan sticks to Itachi-chan more than ever so it doesn’t really do much good. I keep telling him that, but Itachi-chan’s really, _really_ protective when it comes to Sasuke-chan so he never listens.”

The Uchiha keeps chattering as they move further and further away from the river back to the more well-populated areas in Konoha, and Takahiro hates how he keeps talking, how he doesn’t stop, how he’s so happy when Takahiro’s _aching_. His head hurts and so do his feet and he comes to an abrupt stop.

“Takahiro-chan?”

“Don’t call me that.”

The hand on his shoulder stills, and it’s only then that Takahiro realizes it’s been moving non-stop. Fingers tapping lightly as the older boy spoke, the occasional squeeze whenever he got worked up, the soothing rubbing whenever Takahiro tensed.

It all stops.

“What do you want me to call you then?”

His voice is calm, warm, kind even, and Takahiro hates it. 

“Don’t. Just, just don’t.”

The Uchiha is silent for a long moment and Takahiro clenches his fists so tightly he can feel his nails digging into his palms when finally, the weight on his shoulders disappears.

He doesn’t know why he suddenly feels lost.

“Okay,” the boy says and it’s still in that same kind, gentle tone that makes him want to scream. “Do you want me to leave?”

Yes. No. He doesn’t know.

The Uchiha stays by his side as thoughts, useless and tiring but always _there_ , churn through Takahiro’s head. He doesn’t know how long he stands there, eyes squeezed shut, hands balled in fists by his side, his breathing harsh and uneven - but the Uchiha _stays_ until Takahiro is too tired to think.

“What do you want,” He sounds more exhausted than any eight-year-old has any right to be, but he can’t bring himself to care.

“Oh, there are lots of things I want,” the Uchiha says cheerfully and Takahiro resists the urge to close his eyes again. “I want Itachi-chan to stop worrying so much about Sasuke-chan, I want Sasuke-chan to make more friends, I want some of the other shinobi I work with to stop being such pricks, I want a box full of mochi, I want Konoha to be safe, I want-”

“From me,” he interrupts when it sounds like the Uchiha has an entire list and is perfectly willing to list off every single thing on it. “What do you want from me.”

The Uchiha beams at him like he’s been waiting for Takahiro to ask, and Takahiro’s already regretting everything.

“Well, it would be nice to be friends I suppose,” he says, and Takahiro can’t help but stare, because even if he isn’t really good at guessing people’s ages, it doesn’t take a genius to realize the other boy is at least five years older than him, and as far as he knows, teens don’t want to be friends with ‘little kids.’ “But I’ll be satisfied with being distant acquaintances for now.”

“For now?”

The words escape him before he can stop them. 

“Yep! ‘Cause that’s how you make friends, isn’t it? You start by saying ‘hello’ on the street one day, ask them how their day is going the next, then you move on to talking about people you mutually hate behind their backs and tada! You’re friends!”

“That doesn’t sound very nice.”

“Being friends?”

“No. Talking about people behind their backs.”

“Well, no, it isn’t, but it’s also one of the best ways of making friends. Or at least that’s what Akane baa-chan said.”

Whoever she is, she isn’t wrong, but Takahiro doubts that she actually meant for the Uchiha to take what she said literally. 

“Or we could start with introductions! What’s your name?”

“You know my name.”

“True, but you don’t know mine, and if I ask you for your name, you’ll have to ask me for mine, won’t you?”

“...What’s your name.”

God, he’s exhausting.

The Uchiha grins at Takahiro, whose face is carefully blank. 

“Uchiha Shisui. Nice to meet you!”

Takahiro regrets everything.

***

The Uchiha walks him back to where he lives, talking about this and that the entire way, only stopping when Takahiro leads him to the orphanage. There’s a surge of something malicious, something vindictive that rises in Takahiro’s chest when he sees the exact moment the Uchiha realizes he’s an orphan but it quickly gives way to guilt. He looks _crushed_ and Takahiro doesn’t understand why, when he barely even knows him. The older boy doesn’t say anything, though. He just gives him a cheerful wave, tells him he’s hoping they’ll run into each other again soon, and leaves in a flurry of leaves that fall slowly to the ground. As soon as Takahiro is alone again, it’s as if all his energy has left him in a rush and he’s _tired_. 

He skips dinner and collapses onto his bed. He falls asleep almost instantly. 

He wakes to the sound of the orphanage matron’s voice and it takes him a couple of seconds to remember where he is. The room is too large, too empty, too foreign and for a second, it’s too much. He can’t _breathe_. 

But then his roommate comes running up to him, his eyes wide and round, and he says,

“Takahiro-kun, there’s an Uchiha waiting for you at the door.”

But when Takahiro trudges down the stairs thirty minutes later with his bag slung over his shoulder at seven-forty in the morning, it’s not one but three Uchiha who are waiting for him. 

“Takahiro-chan!” the Uchiha from yesterday - and he should probably start calling him Shisui if he doesn’t want to get him mixed up with the other two, shouldn’t he? - greets him brightly, while the tiny Uchiha scowls and the middle one watches impassively.

“I’ve told you about Itachi-chan and Sasuke-chan, haven’t I? We’ll walk you two to the academy!”

Takahiro resists the urge to sigh as he takes a step forward. 

He feels lighter than he has in years.


	2. Chapter 2

It becomes something like a routine. Takahiro wakes up in the morning, gets his things, goes downstairs to meet Shisui, Itachi, and Sasuke - who turns out to be two years younger than Takahiro to Shisui’s mortification - and they walk to the academy together. Sasuke complains when Takahiro is late and even if he can ignore Shisui’s loud scolding, he can’t ignore Itachi’s disappointed look, so he makes a point of getting up as soon as he can.

He stops being late all the time. He can tell Katsumi-sensei’s torn between being elated and suspicious. 

For a while, he still doesn’t do his homework and rarely opens his books, but when Shisui finds out, he isn’t given a choice. They sit him down, him and Itachi, and they work him through the kanji and the technicalities. It takes a while for him to catch up - after all, he’s spent over two years doing nothing whatsoever - but he does catch up because Shisui has ridiculously high standards, especially considering he looks like the type of person who doesn’t really care about studying.

It turns out Takahiro was as wrong as he could be. Apparently Shisui’s a genius in his own right.

He can’t see it.

“Don’t you have missions to do?” he snaps at Shisui one day, when he’s being particularly fussy over how _you have to make this stroke up-down, Taka-chan, not down-up or it won’t look right!_

“What? Oh, missions. Right. Missions,” he exchanges a look with Itachi that he seems to think Takahiro won’t notice but he does because despite what Shisui seems to think, he has eyes and knows how to use them.

“Shisui’s on leave,” Itachi offers, and Shisui quickly nods along with the excuse.

“Yeah. Leave. I’ve got plenty of time to help you kids with your homework.”

Takahiro wants to ask what he means by ‘leave’ and why that ‘leave’ doesn’t seem to be ending anytime soon, but Sasuke takes offence at being called a ‘kid.’

“I’m not a kid!” he protests, undermining the exact point he’s trying to make by pouting spectacularly, “And _he’s_ the one who needs help with homework, not me!”

“Sasuke, be nice,” Itachi admonishes and pokes his brother in the head with two of his fingers. Sasuke scowls and rubs at his forehead but he doesn’t say anything more, doesn’t offer an apology. Takahiro doesn’t really want one, either.

It’s not like he’s wrong. Sasuke’s smart for his age, maybe not as much as Itachi or Shisui, but he’s still smart and Takahiro’s lack of pride means he doesn’t have any trouble with admitting that the seven-year-old probably reads better than he does. 

To be perfectly honest, _Sasuke_ could probably help him with his homework. 

“After we’re done let’s get a snack,” says Shisui as he ruffles Takahiro’s hair, turning it into a fluffy mess of curls Itachi tries to calm in vain, “I’ll pay.”

“Obviously,” says Itachi dryly as he combs through Takahiro’s hair. “Seeing as you offered.”

Shisui sticks his tongue out at Itachi, who ignores him with all the maturity of someone five times his age. He pats down a particularly stubborn curl before letting out a sigh and gives Takahiro an apologetic look.

He doesn’t mind, not really. He’s far too young (old) to care about his hair anyway. 

“Dango?” Sasuke asks hopefully, and Shisui grins down at him.

“Yep,” he says, popping the ‘p’ dramatically. It clashes horribly with the solemn air he’s trying to protrude. “Dango forever.”

Itachi nods gravely beside him and Takahiro resists the urge to let his head fall onto the table. 

Idiots. He’s surrounded by idiots and he doesn’t understand how he let that happen.

But a small part of him does understand. The part that always pulls him back away from the river he hasn’t visited in months whispers to him whenever he sees them waiting for him in front of the orphanage.

 _Friends_ , it tells him. _You have friends._

And maybe he does.

When the Uchihas find out he’s practically a regular at the dango shop near the edge of the Nara district, they freak. He tries to explain that he goes there mostly for the quiet than the actual taste - his taste buds haven’t completely died, at least not yet - but Itachi, _Itachi_ of all people, isn’t listening so he gives up. Arguing is too much of a hassle anyway.

“You’re stupid,” Sasuke tells him with all the authority of a six-year-old who has been spoiled with only the best and Takahiro stares.

“Because I like a shop for its location,” he says flatly and Sasuke nods. 

“It’s a _dango_ shop,” he insists, his cheeks puffing out adorably and Takahiro has to wonder whether he looks like that when he’s annoyed as well.

Probably not. Takahiro isn’t an Uchiha after all. 

“You’re supposed to go to a dango shop for the _dango_ , not the lo- lo-”

“Location,” Shisui says cheerfully as he places a hand on Takahiro’s head. “Though I have to say, I agree with Sasuke on this one. What’s so good about where it is anyway?”

“It’s quiet.” Takahiro shrugs and Shisui moves his hand from Takahiro’s head to his shoulder. “It helps me think.”

“Think?” Shisui says and Takahiro can hear the scepticism in his voice even as his hand tenses minutely, “About what? Not what you’re learning at the academy ‘cause you’re horrible at that.”

“Things,” Takahiro says shortly, and though Shisui gives a slight pause and the hand on his shoulder stills for a moment, he stops asking.

“You’re just stupid,” Sasuke announces once more, and this time Itachi scolds him for being rude while Shisui just laughs.

“See you tomorrow?” Shisui asks once they get back to the orphanage. 

He always does that. Every day, without fail, he says ‘see you tomorrow?’ like it isn’t a given, like it isn’t something that can be expected. 

Takahiro wonders whether or not that’s because of how they first met. Because Shisui’s worried he’ll give in to the urge one day and disappear under the white foams that crash and break endlessly without fail.

He wants to tell Shisui he won’t, that he’s far too busy to think of taking a step forward when there are so many reasons to take a step back, but he doesn’t quite know how to put it in words. 

So instead, he nods and Shisui beams down at him and ruffles his hair before leaving. Maybe he knows. Maybe he understands. Maybe he doesn’t. But that hardly matters when Takahiro knows there’s going to be a tomorrow for him to ask if he feels like it.

Nowadays, he barely has time to wonder about anything anymore. He doesn’t have time to think _when will the dream end_ , because he’s too busy doing his homework, learning how to read kanji, understanding chakra, and memorizing history. He spends his days at the academy listening to Katsumi-sensei lecture about things he understands now, and afterwards, he’s whisked off by Shisui who’s too fast for his own good. They go straight to Itachi and Sasuke, the latter of whom is waiting for them impatiently while the former just smiles. When they work on homework, Shisui’s more of a distraction than a help, but Itachi’s a great teacher, better even than most Takahiro can remember from before. On one of his good days, he tells him that. 

Itachi looks delighted and Takahiro thinks it’s unfair how the older boy’s being pushed and pulled and shoved into a mould until he’s shaped into something he doesn’t want to be when he’s so good at what he loves.

He never says any of that though, because he knows you’re not supposed to find fault with anything good in a dream, because what if it goes away?

He doesn’t want Shisui, Itachi, and Sasuke to leave. Not when it already took so long for him to find them. Or for them to find him.

But while good things disappear in dreams when you question them, life is harsher. It doesn’t give a warning, doesn’t give a reason. It just takes and leaves you floundering without a buoy in the middle of an ocean with no land in sight.

Shisui dies and Takahiro’s left with nothing but blue and black and grey as he stares down at the Naka river swirling beneath his feet.

***

“Takahiro-kun, a moment please.”

He remembers something like this from months ago. Light streams into the classroom through the open window, and he stares at a bee crawling up the window sill. 

It’s quiet, the classroom. Too quiet.

He wants to scream.

“How are you?” Katsumi-sensei asks and Takahiro keeps his eyes fixed on the bee. It crawls up, then falls, only to crawl back up again. 

“Are you okay?”

He doesn’t answer. Doesn’t need to when he knows he looks like he hasn’t slept in days.

He hasn’t.

“You were friends with Shisui-kun.”

Yes. No. Maybe. 

“Have you seen Itachi-kun and Sasuke-kun, since?”

No.

Katsumi-sensei knows as well. After all, it’s been over a week since he stopped coming to the academy on time. Itachi and Sasuke were waiting for him in front of the orphanage, the day after, but there were only two Uchihas and that was wrong when he was used to three. 

He closed his eyes and didn’t open them for hours.

They were gone when he finally came down the stairs with aching knees and wrists.

“I think you should go see them.”

Katsumi-sensei’s left-hand twitches for a second but Takahiro doesn’t notice because he doesn’t, he can’t, he _won’t_ -

“Takahiro-kun?”

He can hear the river, churning deep down in the valley as it pulls and pushes and rushes off to somewhere Takahiro doesn’t know. It doesn’t stop. It never stops. It flows and flows and sometimes it feels like even if the world ends, even if everything turned out to be a dream, the Naka would be the only thing that stayed. Drops of water gathering and dispersing, breaking into thousands of little pieces that fall and drown, just one of billions, never noticed, never seen. 

Always there and yet never noticed until Takahiro finds himself staring down at the black currents wondering whether he’d sink or float or break before he woke up.

When he did, when he woke up, would he still be here?

Would he still be dreaming?

Would there be a difference?

“I want to go home,” the words spill out from between his lips and that’s the most honest he has been since he has woken up (since he has fallen asleep). He grabs the straps of his bag to keep his hands from shaking.

“I don’t think-”

_“I want to go home.”_

Katsumi-sensei goes silent and the only sound Takahiro can hear is his own breathing, loud enough to cover the ringing that echoes through his ears, but not enough to drown out the sound of water flowing.

“Fine,” says Katsumi-sensei. “You may leave.”

It feels like a loss even when it should be a victory.

Takahiro leaves the building and stumbles through the streets. He moves - not towards the dango shop or the Uchiha compound or the small clearing they used to train, and never towards the rushing river where he drowned and _he doesn’t understand why, why did he, he didn’t have to, what about him-_

Everything around him blurs and he can’t focus on anything, on anyone, but he doesn’t stop. He keeps putting one foot in front of the other, and even if he doesn’t know where, he does know there’s bound to be an end if he keeps walking. 

Be it home or a river.

Except he forgets that Konoha isn’t anything like what he’s used to. He forgets that the village, for all its show of freedom and open-air and trees, is just a village and a shinobi village at that. There are walls in front of him, towering walls that are higher than any he’s ever seen and he’s trapped like a frog in a well. A frog that knows well enough that the sky he sees and the water he treads isn’t everything, but can’t leave anyway. 

The sky is black, the walls are grey and he feels like he’s drowning. 

He’s not brave, never has been, so he turns back before anyone can ask what an academy student is doing so close to the gates. He doesn’t know where he is, but he can see the Hokage’s tower from where he is so he heads in that direction. Even if he can’t find his way back to the orphanage from the walls, he can from the academy so that’s where he’ll start. 

It’s a long walk, and more than once he’s tempted to stop. But more than that, he’s afraid. Afraid of lying down and never getting up again, of being caught outside on his own, of running into Itachi or Sasuke and not being able to say a word.

He’s scared and he’s tired of being scared.

He takes another step forward and something small and round breaks underneath his feet. A sweet scent wafts up from the ground and he lifts his foot to see purple. 

He’s stepped on a grape. Why is there a grape?

It doesn’t take long for his question to be answered.

“Oi!” a voice, too loud and too jarring, echoes through the not quite empty streets. A boy a little smaller than Takahiro himself runs up to him, lugging two large bags full of something Takahiro can’t quite see in each hand.

“That’s mine, y’know!” yellow and blue shoves itself into Takahiro’s face with a frown.

Takahiro blinks at him slowly and watches as the boy scowls quite impressively. When it’s clear Takahiro isn’t going to move on his own, the boy shoves him out of the way. He crouches down and begins to pick up the small fruit off the ground, and it’s only then that Takahiro sees them littering the ground.

One of the bags the boy has set on the ground looks like it’s going to tip over so Takahiro reaches out almost unconsciously to steady it. There’s a carton of milk at the top and he looks at the expiration date.

February 12. That’s almost a month ago. 

“Leave it!” the boy snaps as he snatches the carton out of Takahiro’s hands and cradles it in his arms like it’s something precious, “I got it half off, y’know!”

“You shouldn’t have.” 

The boy takes a step back. He looks a mix of defensive and frightened, almost like he thinks Takahiro would try to take it from him.

If he wasn’t so tired he’d tell him he’s lactose intolerant and isn’t interested in milk that has probably gone bad.

Instead, Takahiro peers into the bag that’s full of groceries and immediately regrets it. Most of the vegetables look like they’re at least a week old and the fruit are overripe. Something, probably the meat, smells awful and that isn’t counting the broken box of eggs at the bottom that’s leaking.

“You’re going to get in trouble,” he says, because even if the kid has technically done a good thing, what with getting the groceries and such, he doubts the boy’s parents will be happy with him wasting money on produce that looks like they should have been thrown out two weeks ago.

The boy stiffens at his words and hunches in on himself. It makes him look smaller, younger. 

He finds himself feeling rather unimpressed with the boy’s guardians.

“Do you have any money left?”

“Why? So you can take that too?”

Takahiro stares at the kid until he begins to squirm. He doesn’t understand why a seven-year-old’s mind jumped straight to being robbed by an nine-year-old who’s barely taller than him, but it’s none of his business.

Technically the boy’s groceries aren’t any of his business either, but...

“No,” is all he says and he waits.

After a while of squirming and suspicious squinting, the boy pulls out a worn purse shaped like a frog. “I’ve got some left,” he says reluctantly. Takahiro holds out a hand and after a lot of posturing the boy hands it over.

He checks the contents, and yes, there is some left. Not a lot, but enough to replace some of what’s in his bags.

“Where’s the store you usually go to.”

“Huh? You mean Aone-ji’s store?”

He doesn’t know who Aone-ji is but the boy clearly does, so Takahiro gestures for him to lead the way. The kid misunderstands, though, and after a couple of seconds, he slowly, cautiously reaches out and takes his hand. 

It takes everything Takahiro has to not flinch away from the warmth. 

The boy stares at him with something uncomfortably close to wonder in his eyes as he holds the very tips of Takahiro’s fingers. His grip is loose, careful, vulnerable, like he’s expecting Takahiro to shake him off - except he doesn’t. The boy’s hand is warm, almost hot, and it’s soothing against his aching fingers. Takahiro twists his wrist lightly and before the boy can pull away like he’s been burned, he catches his hand in firm fingers.

“Let’s go,” he says and pretends he can’t see the boy’s eyes widen.

There’s silence as they walk, Takahiro having never been particularly talkative while the boy is strangely subdued. It doesn’t last long, though, as it takes them only five minutes to get to the store. 

“You don’t, you don’t need to - I can take care of myself y’know,” the boy says suddenly as he yanks his hand out of Takahiro’s. Takahiro takes a moment to long for the warmth that has suddenly disappeared and carefully stretches his fingers, trying to get rid of the ache that has returned.

“I don’t,” he agrees mildly and watches as the boy’s face falls, “Meat first.”

It has been a while since he has done something like this. Something he’s used to doing. Shopping for groceries isn’t really different wherever you live, and he takes his time, carefully picking out what looks the best among the many products on sale. They’re on a tight budget, but somehow he manages to replace the meat and most of the vegetables in the boy’s bag. He even gets a new carton of milk after tossing out the old one while pointing at the expiration date. 

The boy trails after him silently like a baby duckling that has just hatched from its egg.

Once they leave the store, he asks the boy where he lives and the boy points at an apartment that’s so far away he can’t see it. The regret at buying so much when he knows the kid won’t be able to carry it all by himself creeps onto him, but he can’t leave him here, not when it’s already dark out. So, he picks up one of the bags, feels what little muscles he has pull at the unexpected weight, and begins the long trudge to the boy’s home. The kid follows a couple of steps behind, only taking the lead when Takahiro points out he doesn’t know the way. 

(He hasn’t said a thing beyond telling him to turn left or right so Takahiro assumes he’s shy, but he isn’t. He’s just scared and hopeful in equal measures and doesn’t know how to deal with it).

They stop in front of a dingy little apartment. The boy doesn’t reach up to ring the bell as Takahiro expected and instead pulls out a small key hanging on a chain around his neck. He fumbles for a bit before sticking it into the keyhole with more enthusiasm than what’s probably needed and the lock clicks open.

“Um, make yourself at home?” 

The greeting is as awkward as it is traditional, and Takahiro deliberately doesn’t think about how the tiny apartment seems utterly devoid of any kind of adult influence. 

“I, um, I have water!” the boy yells from the kitchen as Takahiro stands in what’s probably the living room but looks more like a mix of a garbage dump and a laundromat. He doesn’t know where to put the groceries when there isn’t a single empty space on the floor so he stands at the edge, hands full and arms tiring. 

The boy rushes out of the kitchen with a cup full to the brim, trying not to spill any but failing miserably and getting his sleeves all wet. His face turns a bright red when he catches sight of what Takahiro’s looking at, and he stutters apologies as he places the cup on a small table in the middle of the room, before scooping up trash and dirty clothes and tossing them into an adjacent room. 

“It’s, I haven’t got time to clean y’know, with school and stuff,” he stammers as he grabs one of the bags from Takahiro’s hands. Takahiro doesn’t answer because if he does, it means he has heard right and the boy, who can’t be more than seven, is living on his own.

He busies his hands instead, and opens the refrigerator. It’s both alarming and a relief when he finds it near empty, and he begins to take what little they bought and put it away.

“I can, I can do that y’know,” the boy says awkwardly as he hovers by his side. Takahiro ignores him and slowly rearranges the inside of his fridge. 

“Uzumaki Naruto,” the kid blurts out just as Takahiro’s wondering where to put the eggs and he stares as the boy’s face turns a blotchy red. “It’s, um, it’s my name y’know! What’s yours?”

“Murakami Takahiro,” he says after a beat and is rewarded with a shy but blinding smile. He can’t, it’s too much, too genuine so he averts his eyes and goes back to staring at the eggs.

“I’ll put those away!” says Naruto, and he reaches out to grab them away from him with all the grace of the seven-year-old child he is. 

Takahiro finds himself being shooed out of the kitchen and he goes back to the living room, which looks just a bit more cleaner than before but is still mostly just a mess.

The walls are white with the exception of a couple of spots where mold seems to have made itself at home. It’s almost comforting for a second, but then he remembers opening his eyes to white walls and it no longer is. 

He closes his eyes and tries to breathe.

“D’you, d’you like ramen?” Naruto’s voice breaks through the fog that’s seeping into his lungs, and Takahiro opens his eyes. The boy’s standing too close, because apparently a lack of parental influence means no one has taught him about personal space. Takahiro’s mouth moves of its own accord once again.

“Where’s your guardian?”

It’s doing that a lot these days, he notes absently as Naruto immediately stutters and starts to avoid his eyes.

He blames Shisui. He’d never had such little impulse control before he met the Uchiha.

“Don’t have one,” Naruto mumbles and Takahiro can feel a migraine start to build in the back of his head. 

“No one?”

“Nuh-uh.” The boy shakes his head, and that’s that. It would be cruel to keep asking, so Takahiro doesn’t.

Instead, he wanders over to the kitchen to grab one of the empty grocery bags and reaches down to pick up a dirty pair of socks. 

“Clothing in this bag. Trash in the other.”

Naruto stares up at him for a second before jumping to action. He knocks over the cup of water he has set on the table and Takahiro ignores him in favour of picking up another piece of clothing; He just knows it’s going to take him a long, long time to turn this place into something habitable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To everyone who's been looking forward to Shisui - I am so, so sorry. 
> 
> At least there's Naruto now?
> 
> Many thanks to Fire-RY for being a lovely beta, and I hope everyone enjoyed the chapter!


	3. Chapter 3

It takes them over three hours to get everything organized. The only reason why it took so long is that Naruto kept making a mess, and Takahiro half believes Naruto was doing it on purpose to make him stay longer.

No one’s that clumsy, especially not a shinobi hopeful.

Because, apparently, that’s what Naruto is. After getting used to Takahiro’s presence the boy just wouldn’t shut up, so now he knows how Naruto is going to be the Hokage and make everyone acknowledge him, even Sakura-chan, who’s apparently _the prettiest girl ever ‘cause she has pink hair and the prettiest green eyes_ , and Sasuke, who’s _a stuck-up bastard who thinks he’s better than everyone else y’know?_

Takahiro could have told him Sasuke is just shy and socially awkward, but he doesn’t.

“I’m hungry,” Naruto whines from where he’s sprawled down on the ground next to where Takahiro is cleaning the wall. Takahiro spares him a glance before going back to scrubbing at the mold with a viciousness he usually saves for when he’s in a spectacularly bad mood.

“Takahiro-nii, I’m hungry.”

Well, he isn’t and the mold’s not going anywhere on its own.

“Wanna get ramen?”

Takahiro pauses in his scrubbing to look down at the boy who’s staring up at him with hopeful eyes.

“You just got groceries.”

“Yeah but ramen’s the best, y’know!” the boy argues as he rolls over onto his stomach. 

Takahiro turns away from him to stare at the mold. The greenish-black patch clings to the wall like it thinks it can convince Takahiro it’s part of a badly done paint job if it tries just a little harder, and honestly, Takahiro’s half ready to admit defeat and let it go. It’s stubborn in a way Takahiro isn’t, and if it wants to live that much, who is he to deny it?

“Can’t you cook?”

“Huh? Oh, um, I know how to cook instant ramen?”

“Then why did you.” He gestures in the vague direction of the fridge and Naruto looks away. 

The tips of his ears are pink when he mumbles, “The, um, some of the teachers at the Academy said vegetables and fruit are important to be a good shinobi so, y’know.”

He does know, even if he can’t quite remember hearing anything similar during Katsumi-sensei’s lectures. But then again he hasn’t really been a good student so he supposes he has just missed it.

“I can learn! But - ramen?” Naruto looks up at him like a puppy begging for treats, and Takahiro caves like wet paper.

“Fine,” he says, trying not to let any of his exhaustion show, “Ramen. For now.”

“Yeah!” The boy bounds over to the kitchen and Takahiro lugs the pail of dirty water to the bathroom where he pours it down the drain.

When he comes back out, Naruto is waiting for him with his purse in his hands and looking anywhere but at Takahiro.

“Sorry!” he says before Takahiro can say anything. When Takahiro just gives him a blank look, he starts to babble.

“It’s buying food day, y’know? And buying-food-day means yesterday was eat-the-last-of-the-food-day, so there isn’t any ramen which is stupid ‘cause there’s never _not_ ramen, except eat-the-last-of-the-food-day which was yesterday, so there _isn’t_ ramen which means, uh, I’ve still got hot water though! So, if there’s ramen I can cook, but there isn’t, y’know, so, yeah. Y’know.”

He doesn’t know, actually, but Naruto’s wringing the little purse in his hands and there isn’t any boiling water in sight so he can take a guess.

“I don’t have any money,” he says blankly and feels more startled than anything, when Naruto perks up.

“I do!” he says eagerly as he shoves his purse into Takahiro’s face. “Gamma-chan’s not empty yet!”

Apparently, the kid has an emergency stash of cash. Takahiro remembers nearly emptying the purse at the store, but at the moment, it looks to be at least half full.

It doesn’t rest well, letting a seven-year-old who’s presumably on a tight budget treat him to dinner, but he’s a nine-year-old orphan who’s far too tired to argue, so he just nods and takes Naruto’s hand.

It’s warm. Is it always so warm?

Naruto obviously knows where he’s going. He weaves through the occasional crowd of people wandering the streets, ducking into alleys and climbing over fences. Takahiro thinks he’s taking shortcuts at first, but it feels like they’re going in circles and it takes them far too long to reach a small stand that spells ‘Ichiraku’ at the top.

“Teuchi-ji!” Naruto cries out as a greeting, and Takahiro winces at the noise. He’s loud, louder than Takahiro is used to, and Naruto immediately subsides, looking horribly apologetic.

“Sorry,” he whispers, voice soft but still loud enough that Takahiro feels his head throb. “I’ll be quieter next time.”

“Hello, Naruto. Have you brought a friend?” the man standing behind the counter looks down at them curiously and Takahiro says with more harshness than he means to,

“No. We’re not friends.”

He feels Naruto wilt by his side, but he can’t bring himself to care. Takahiro pulls his hand out of Naruto’s grip. The cool night air hits his joints with all the mercy and kindness of a kunai. 

He wants to leave.

The beating of his heart, the blood pulsing through his ears, the roaring of the black river that follows him around everywhere he goes - the sounds, both imaginary and real, fill his ears, drowning out everything else. It’s like mist so thick it’s almost tangible, but when he holds out a hand, it disperses into nothing and the only thing left is a vague feeling of loss. No matter how loud it is, no matter the fact that sometimes, the only thing he hears for hours is the sound of water churning in the valley, it’s never enough for him to know for sure, that when he reaches down, he’ll feel cold water running through his fingers. 

Everything is real and yet nothing is.

He doesn’t know how Shisui managed to work up the courage to jump into a river that could be an illusion -

Unless, maybe, just maybe, Shisui was just another part of a dream Takahiro could never escape.

He doesn’t remember closing his eyes, but small fingers tangle into his sleeve and his eyes flicker open. 

Naruto is watching him carefully with concern etched onto his face. The fingers Takahiro had thought were twisting in his shirt, are barely holding onto his sleeve in a grip so delicate, it’s almost like Naruto is holding a butterfly by its near-transparent wings.

Is that what he is now? A glasswing butterfly?

“Sorry,” says Naruto. “If you don’t want to be friends, you don’t need to,” Naruto continues, as if Takahiro hadn’t been the one to push him away for no reason at all. “You’re super nice, y’know? No one’s ever helped me with stuff before.”

Naruto is seven. Takahiro doesn’t really remember what it was like to actually be seven, but he knows he has never been refused help as child. Even now, when he’s a mix between a child and an adult, people still offer. Katsumi-sensei, Shisui, Itachi, even Sasuke at times - they’re so willing to give when he’s nothing but a black hole, always taking and using - and yet does no one help Naruto?

“I’m not nice,” he manages to choke out, and Naruto squints at him in confusion.

“Yeah, you are,” he says with all the certainty of a child who believes everything is exactly as he sees it. “You helped clean my stuff, and you helped me shop for food. You’re super good at that, y’know?”

That’s not being nice. That’s being a normal responsible adult. A normal person.

Takahiro wants to tell Naruto that what he has done for him isn’t something special like Naruto obviously thinks it is, but his hands are still shaking and his breaths come out ragged and shallow. The stall owner is hovering by their side as if he’s ready to swoop in if it ever looks like they need it, and for a second, Takahiro considers letting the man deal with it. Even if he remembers being an adult, once upon a time, on the surface, Takahiro still looks like a child. No one would think it odd if he left. At least not very.

But the fingers still holding onto his sleeve are so small and yet so careful, he can’t.

Takahiro draws the cool night air into his lungs. He keeps it in for a couple of seconds, waiting until he can feel the pressure build in his chest, before he lets it out all in one breath.

He’s hardly the best person for this. He has issues, multiple issues that he knows can’t be fixed easily. It has been long enough that he knows to admit it, but-

Naruto is trying. Even though he’s only seven and barely knows how to take care of himself let alone others, he’s trying to be kind.

Takahiro has given up on trying a long, long time ago, only to be dragged back from the edge of the chasm by a boy who chose to give up only months later. He’s tired of trying when it feels like there’s never going to be a point but - what if there is? What if it turns out it does matter?

He can see Naruto’s eyes, open and honest, and his hand is warm, almost unusually so, from where Takahiro can feel it through the thin fabric of his shirt. He might be an illusion, he might be a dream, but at the moment-

He feels real.

And even if he isn’t.

Takahiro can still try.

“Do you have any recommendations?”

“Huh?”

Takahiro gestures vaguely where he hopes is where the menu is. He can’t quite muster the energy to look around, not when it feels like the only thing that’s keeping him from drifting away is the hand on his sleeve. 

“Ramen,” he says and watches tiredly as Naruto instantly perks up. He’s definitely used up far too much energy today. “You said it was your treat.”

“Yeah!” Naruto shouts enthusiastically, and he begins to pull Takahiro towards the stools by the counter. 

“Teuchi-ji, two porks!”

“Coming right up!” The stall owner smiles down at both of them. “First-time customer discount for your-” he cuts himself off before he finishes. 

“Acquaintance,” Takahiro says quietly as he takes the cup of water Naruto poured out for him. “We’re acquaintances.”

“What’s an ‘acquaintance’?”

“It’s-” The words catch in his throat, and Takahiro clenches his fist tightly around the cup of clear water. “It’s when you see someone across the street and can say ‘hello’ but aren’t, aren’t friends. Not yet.”

“You want to say ‘hi’ to me?” 

It’s such an odd thing to ask that for a second, Takahiro almost gapes. “I- yes? Kind of? Maybe?”

Naruto stares at him with unbridled awe while the stall owner beams. 

Takahiro has no idea what’s going on. 

“You-” The seven-year-old visibly struggles, his face contorting so his nose is all scrunched up while his eyes are narrowed into slits. His mouth trembles like it isn’t quite sure whether it’s supposed to twist up or down. “You’re really nice, y’know? Like, super, super nice.”

Takahiro doesn’t know what he’s supposed to say in response to that, so he’s grateful when distraction comes in the form of food.

The stall owner hands them two bowls of steaming ramen, and Takahiro carefully passes one over to Naruto.

“Eat your food,” he tells him, and the younger boy beams as he claps his hands together.

“Thank you for the meal!”

It’s a bit too greasy, and there’s far too much for Takahiro to finish in one sitting, but Naruto’s chatter washes over him like snow blanketing the world in white. Everything is muffled and Takahiro lets himself focus on nothing but the present.

It’s, dare he say it, almost nice.

***

Naruto insists on taking the leftovers from Takahiro’s portion back to his apartment despite the fact that the noodles were sure to get soggy from soaking up the broth. For some reason, Naruto ends up walking Takahiro back to the orphanage, and he manages to wheedle out a promise from Takahiro that he’d drop by Naruto’s apartment the next day to teach him how to cook.

Takahiro has no idea how that happened. He doesn’t know how to cook anything outside of heating up leftovers.

Well. At least curry doesn’t seem too difficult.

They part ways a little before they get to the orphanage. Naruto leaves, singing what Takahiro assumes is a little child’s ditty common in this world, while he swings the leftover bag back and forth. Takahiro watches him until he can’t even pretend he still sees the boy’s bright yellow hair, and finally, he trudges back into the orphanage. 

The matron doesn’t greet him and he doesn’t greet the matron.

His roommate is already asleep by the time Takahiro takes a shower and changes into his nightclothes. He’s about to crawl into bed, but then he sees the textbooks left untouched on his desk for the past week. 

He hesitates. It’s already quite late, even by his old standards, but...

Today is a good day. He’s feeling better than he has in days, and he has no idea how long it will last until he goes back to questioning everything from the sky above him to his own thoughts. 

It would be stupid to waste it.

Instead of going to bed, Takahiro turns on the nightstand, pulls out a chair, and begins to read. It takes him two hours to struggle through five pages without anyone to help him, but when he finally collapses into bed, the only thoughts that occupy his mind are those about chakra control and chakra pathways.

***

Takahiro has a goal, and like any other sensible person, he’s willing to take certain measures to achieve his goal. 

He’s on his best behaviour during the entire school day. 

He arrives on time - which is much more difficult than it sounds, considering he had to leave through the window to avoid running into Itachi and Sasuke, who _still_ show up in front of the orphanage every morning - pays attention during class, takes notes, even tries his hand at answering a question. He was wrong, of course, and it probably cemented the popular opinion amongst his year group that he was a bit… slow, but it was worth it to see Katsumi-sensei choke on thin air when he raised his hand.

He’s fairly sure he heard Katsumi-sensei mutter “Kai” under his breath once or twice when he passed by. 

It’s amusing, but more than that, it’s exhausting. He doesn’t remember the last time he has tried so hard, and his attention span has suffered for it. More often than not, he’d think he’s listening to the lecture, but then he’d blink and find that the rest of the class have already moved on to the next page and he’s left scrambling to keep up. More than once he thinks there isn’t a point and his mind begins to wander. 

But then he’d look down and see the words he’d hastily scrawled onto the back of his left hand that very morning, and he’d remember that yes, there is a point. He has a goal, and as simple and trivial it is, it’s still his goal for the day.

Finally, after hours of struggling through theory he barely understands and practicals that always leave him panting on the ground feeling like he’s about to throw up, the school day ends.

Takahiro walks up to Katsumi-sensei and waits for the instructor to acknowledge him.

It doesn’t take long. 

Katsumi-sensei all but drops everything he’s holding to give Takahiro his full attention.

“Hello, Takahiro-kun. Is there something you need?” 

He looks so eager, like he’s ready to bring Takahiro the world if he asked it of him, and for a second, Takahiro feels guilty. 

He isn’t here because he wants to start confiding in the instructor or ask for help. Well, no, he is trying to ask for help but not for the problem he knows is the actual _problem_. 

He’s here for rather… trivial reasons, to be honest. 

As trivial as food ever is.

He glances down at his hand, works up his courage, tries to sound casual, and fails.

“Do you know how to cook?”

There’s a beat of silence as Katsumi-sensei processes what Takahiro just blurted out. Takahiro does his best to refrain from shuffling his feet awkwardly, but in the end, he gives in to the urge.

It’s not like there’s any reason why he shouldn’t. He’s at school with an adult who most likely has his best interests at heart. He’s as safe as he can be in a world where backstabbing is an actual profession.

“Decently,” Katsumi-sensei finally answers and Takahiro frowns up at his teacher.

“What do you mean, ‘decently’?”

“I mean I won’t be starving even if I can’t get take-out,” Katsumi-sensei pauses briefly before continuing, “what brought this on?”

Many, many different things. Technically, everything starts with Takahiro waking up as a toddler in the aftermath of the Kyuubi.

He isn’t about to say that though.

“There’s a boy,” he starts uncertainly, “two years below me.”

Katsumi-sensei waits patiently as Takahiro tries to organize his thoughts. He appreciates the gesture, but to be honest, it doesn’t really help.

“He, he doesn’t have parents but he’s living by himself and- I don’t think he’s eating well. He- I think he’s living off of instant ramen? I’m not sure but it was implied and I, I kind of offered to teach him how to cook, except, I don’t know how either. At least not much. And I thought- you said I could ask you anything- and I know this is pushing it a bit, but-”

“You want me to teach you how to cook?”

Takahiro clenches his fist once before letting go. “Just curry would be fine.”

“I’m not refusing, but,” Katsumi-sensei pauses, “why not ask your caretaker?”

Because it has been literally years since they last spoke to each other outside of what was absolutely necessary?

“You said you were here to help,” Takahiro says stiffly.

“And I am,” Katsumi-sensei says without missing a beat. “That doesn’t mean I don’t want to know - is there a reason why you’re not asking your caretaker?”

“No.” 

Outside of how Takahiro doesn’t talk to anyone back at the orphanage, nothing’s wrong.

Katsumi-sensei gives him a long look that Takahiro can’t quite decipher. 

Is he curious? Concerned? Disappointed? Frustrated?

After a moment, Katsumi-sensei lets out a small hum, and Takahiro lets himself relax just a fraction. “Alright then. When are you meeting your friend?”

“He’s not my friend,” Takahiro says automatically. “And- today? In a couple of hours?”

“Well,” says Katsumi-sensei dryly as he gathers a bunch of files on his desk and places them in one of the cabinets. “You’re on a tight schedule.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, no, it’s fine. Just give me a couple of minutes and we can head over to my apartment.”

Takahiro blinks. “Now?”

Katsumi-sensei looks down at him, amusement clear on his face. “You’re the one who said you’re meeting your ‘not friend’ in a couple of hours. If I’m going to teach you how to cook, we’ll need to get going.”

This is… easier than Takahiro expected. He never doubted that Katsumi-sensei meant it when he said he wanted to help him, but this probably isn’t what the instructor meant by ‘help’. He thought he’d get shooed away to ask someone else, or that he’d have to make-do for today and wait until Katsumi-sensei had time.

He… might have been underestimating how much he worried the man.

“I’m sorry.”

“Hmm?” Katsumi-sensei taps his desk once, and the seals designed to keep away small curious fingers light up. “For what?”

“Everything.”

The lights from the seal die down into a faint glow until they disappear completely. Takahiro keeps his eyes fixed on the desk and just barely manages to resist the urge to trace out the fading seal with the tip of his finger. 

“I’d prefer,” Katsumi-sensei says after what feels like an eternity, “that you thank me instead. A ‘thank you’ is much more pleasant than ‘I’m sorry’, isn’t it?”

He’s kind. Everyone is just so, goddamn, kind.

“Thank you.”

Katsumi-sensei smiles, the movement scrunching up his eyebrows so that the small scar just above his left eye twists almost so it looks like it’s nothing but a shadow. 

“You’re welcome.”

If everyone else can be kind, so can Takahiro.


	4. Chapter 4

Nothing ends up burnt so Takahiro decides to consider his first cooking lesson - both in learning and teaching - a success. Yes, when he tried cooking with Katsumi-sensei the curry ended up far too bland, and when he tried cooking with Naruto it ended up far too salty - but it was still edible. Better than he’d expected, at any rate, and that was what was important, wasn’t it? Actually being able to eat what you made?

(He chooses to pretend he didn’t notice the way Naruto’s face spasmed when he took his first, far too enthusiastic, bite.)

Takahiro has to dump more than half of his share into the trash bin, but Naruto doesn’t leave a single grain of rice. The boy thanks him as he drinks his fourth glass of water in the past thirty minutes and grins wide enough he ends up squinting.

The knowledge that Takahiro can still try and succeed, even if it’s in something insignificant, is… nice. Better than he’d expected anyway.

He’s still riding on the high when three days later, Naruto comes up to him as Takahiro is staring down at his homework at the dango shop by the Nara compound. He babbles something about how he _forgot how to use the washing machine y’know, so could Takahiro-nii help him again, just this once_ \- and Takahiro finds himself back at Naruto’s still-dirty apartment, trying to figure out how to use a washing machine that looks to be at least a decade old without a single clue as to where to begin. 

Takahiro trudges down the hallway, and after nearly half an hour of searching for someone who doesn’t slam the door in their faces the second they see them, he finally finds a grumpy old man whose apartment somehow looks even dirtier than Naruto’s. 

The man teaches him reluctantly, with plenty of hemming and hawing on his part and twice as much shouting on Takahiro’s part. Apparently, the old man’s hard of hearing. 

_Bullshit_ , Takahiro fumes as he grits his teeth when, for the dozenth time in a single hour, the man has him do everything all over again because he ‘misheard’ a question. Takahiro may not have the best grades, but he isn’t stupid, nor is he naive. He notices the way the man deliberates with each step that should have been simple, and keeps changing his answers to something that just barely stays on the right side of absurdity.

He doesn’t know why - honestly, he barely cares - but by the time the man finally gives in and teaches him how to properly use the goddamn machine, Takahiro is ready to strangle him.

Despite the… difficulties, they manage to get the machine to work before dinner. Naruto treats him to ramen once more, rambling on about how _Takahiro-nii’s curry was, uh, awesome - but Takahiro-nii’s already helped him today so it’s Naruto’s turn now, y’know_ , and Takahiro returns to the orphanage with a full stomach and something warm and settled in his chest.

The comforting weight starts growing just a bit heavier when Naruto shows up four days later, asking him to show him _how to cook curry again ‘cause he forgot_. It begins to remind him of the way his limbs used to grow heavy each morning before school, when the younger boy materializes by his side just a day later with an excited _Aone-ji’s store’s having a sale and I need to get stuff but I’m not good at getting healthy stuff y’know, so could Takahiro-nii help? Please?_

Takahiro isn’t stupid, nor is he naive, but he is rather good at willful denial. It takes him six more trips to Naruto’s apartment, two trips to the grocery store, and ten meals at Ichiraku’s for him to realize what it is.

He’s stepped into a role that’s bigger than what he’s prepared for. He isn’t Naruto’s friend, he thinks numbly as he grabs a pack of onions and drops it into the shopping basket Naruto is happily toting around behind him. He isn’t even an acquaintance. 

He- Takahiro is acting like a _parent_.

Him. Takahiro. The boy who’s supposed to be a man, who can’t figure out if anything is real, and has serious, debilitating, issues.

He manages to hold himself together until he locks himself in the orphanage’s bathroom and, finally, breaks down. 

This- this wasn’t what he was expecting (which is _stupid_ because he should have expected it the second he realized Naruto’s excuses for running after him were all along the lines of ‘could Takahiro-nii help me with something again’) and it’s too much. Or rather, Takahiro isn’t enough.

Takahiro is a mess. He’s smart enough to realize that, even disregarding the fact that he’s physically and legally only _nine_ , he isn’t mentally healthy enough to properly take care of himself, let alone a child. True, he doubts that Naruto actually thinks of him like a guardian, but that hardly means anything when Takahiro is the only one that’s _there_. 

Naruto is alone. Except now Takahiro has gone and made himself the only person available - and therefore the only person responsible.

There have been times when Takahiro went without taking a bath for days because he couldn’t remember to take a shower. 

How is he supposed to help a child?

The next day, when he spots Naruto from the window in his room, practically bouncing on the balls of his feet as he waits for Takahiro by the flower shop down the street, he… runs.

There is no other way he can describe it.

“What are you doing?” asks his roommate, his eyes wide as he stares at Takahiro climbing out of the window. 

“Going to school,” Takahiro answers. Despite the sceptical look on his roommate’s face, it’s not a lie.

“But why are you leaving through the window?”

Because Naruto is hanging around the orphanage’s backdoor, and Itachi and Sasuke are waiting by the front. 

Takahiro doesn’t even bother to try to explain himself (because he knows the only explanation he can give doesn’t qualify as one, not really) and jumps.

When the school day ends, he flings himself out of the classroom so Naruto doesn’t have time to come looking for him. 

_It’s just a temporary thing_ , he tries to tell himself as he walks towards the orphanage, his bag heavy and feet even more so. He just… needs some time to regain his bearings.

The next day, he finds himself giving an excuse to stay behind at school for a couple of hours, in the hopes that Naruto gives up and leaves before he does.

It doesn’t work as well as when he left early, because Naruto is more than willing to wait for him to finish asking Katsumi-sensei completely nonsensical questions on medical jutsu. Takahiro would have tried to draw out the impromptu lesson if he could, but he can tell Katsumi-sensei is getting more and more suspicious with each passing minute, and, even worse, _concerned_.

“You study really hard, y’know,” Naruto tells him that evening as Takahiro throws out old vegetables and restocks Naruto’s refrigerator.

Takahiro stares down at a mouldy eggplant he unearthed from somewhere deep within the fridge and tries not to think about how that isn’t true.

“Hey, hey, Iruka-sensei’s giving us a test next week but I’m really bad at math so could Takahiro-nii help tomorrow after school?”

“I’m sorry,” says Takahiro. It isn’t a lie because he can see the room full of training equipment and the small desk in the middle covered with notes written in sloppy childish handwriting, from where he’s standing. “But I’m busy tomorrow.” It’s a lie because Takahiro is a coward.

“Oh, okay,” says Naruto and Takahiro tries not to look away.

It’s growing harder and harder to face Naruto without feeling guilty - but he also _can’t_ deal with this, so...

He starts avoiding Naruto.

It isn’t easy. Takahiro doesn’t know when it happened (though he thinks it’s probably sometime around when Naruto started showing up on a daily basis) but Naruto knows all of Takahiro’s ‘favourite’ places. Unless Takahiro goes out of his way to find somewhere that’s extraordinarily out of place for him, Naruto finds him. 

It’s gotten to the point that he resorts to hiding in a pub.

The jounin who enters the bar at three in the afternoon (far, far too early, even for just a light drink - the adult in Takahiro disapproves) blinks when he catches sight of Takahiro curled up in the corner at the far end of the counter. 

“What’s a kid doing here?”

The retired shinobi manning the counter shrugs. “Kid said he needed a place to study. I said yes.”

“He’s, uh.” The shinobi standing behind the jounin looks from the bartender to Takahiro. “He’s a kid, though?”

“It’s the kid’s birthday,” is all the retired shinobi says as he wipes down an empty glass with a hand that’s missing two fingers.

“... Alright then,” says the first jounin. For a moment, neither shinobi seems to know what to do, but then the shinobi with the senbon stuck in his mouth squares his back, saunters over, and takes a seat next to Takahiro.

Takahiro glances up at him once then goes back to frowning down at his book.

“So,” drawls the shinobi. The senbon clicks against his teeth as he speaks, and Takahiro’s frown deepens. “What’s a kid like you doing in a bar?”

Takahiro gives the shinobi the most unimpressed look he can manage, before he looks pointedly down at the book held open in his lap.

The shinobi lets out a snort while his companion pulls up a seat beside him. “Yeah, I saw that. Kind of hard to miss. Pretty sure your parents won’t be happy with you studying at a bar, though.”

His parents wouldn’t care about their full-grown son going to a bar as long as he didn’t get black-out drunk - not that that was likely to happen with how much Takahiro disliked alcohol.

“I’m an orphan,” Takahiro answers.

There’s a brief silence and out of the corner of his eye, Takahiro can see the second shinobi shift in his seat while a sharp click suggests the first jounin bit down on his senbon.

“I’m sorry,” the jounin says.

“It’s not your fault,” Takahiro says automatically. He regrets it almost as soon as he does. The shinobi isn’t Naruto. He doesn’t need a nine-year-old to help him with his self-esteem. 

The jounin looks down at him, wry amusement mixed with something else palpable in warm brown eyes. “No,” he says easily. “That doesn’t mean I can’t be tactful. Or sympathetic.”

Takahiro’s fingers tighten around the cover of his book. If either shinobi notice, they don’t mention it.

“What year are you in?” the second shinobi, a jounin as well if his vest is anything to go by, asks as he leans forward to peer at Takahiro’s book. “Advanced poisons? Do they teach those in the academy these days?”

It’s such a blatant attempt at a change of topic, it’s almost insulting. Takahiro feels a twinge of irritation at how they aren’t even trying to be subtle but he squashes it down before it can completely rear its head.

“No,” he says. 

“Extra work then? Are you interested in the subject?”

“No.”

Both shinobi wait patiently for Takahiro to elaborate, and after a couple of seconds, he gives in.

“My teacher,” Takahiro says stiffly as he keeps his eyes fixed on the top of the page. “Katsumi-sensei suggested I find something to specialize in. Before I graduate.”

“Oh?” The two jounin exchange glances and Takahiro scowls.

He may be at the bottom of his class in both theory and practicals, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t understand. He knows that ‘find something to specialize in before graduation’ basically translates to ‘overall, hopeless.’ The clan children, those with their special bloodlines and skills, already have a specialization. Those that don’t but still have potential, are given comprehensive training so that when they become a genin, they’ll have the basics down so they can choose what fits them best and survive until then. 

Children like Takahiro, who have no saving grace, are pushed to choose their specialization early on so they don’t waste time trying to be something they’ll never achieve.

It’s efficient, Takahiro has to admit. But no less discouraging for its efficiency.

“But you don’t like poisons,” the shinobi with the scar says and Takahiro gives him a curt nod. “Have you thought of anything else, then? Maybe becoming a medic?”

His chakra control is average at best, iffy if he’s being objective, and downright precarious on his bad days. Not to mention he isn’t particularly interested in all the memorization that’s involved.

“No.”

“... Alright.”

“Okay.” The senbon moves from the left corner of the jounin’s mouth to his right as he leans forward in his seat. “Kid, it’s great that you’re thinking of the future and stuff, but a bar might not be the best place for that. In a couple of hours, people are going to start coming in and it’s going to be loud. Not the best environment for studying. For a seven-year-old at any rate.”

“I’m _nine_ ,” Takahiro snaps. Wait, no. “Ten,” he corrects himself. “As of today.”

“Mmhmm,” the shinobi lets out a sceptical hum. His already arched eyebrow rises almost comically when Takahiro’s scowl deepens. “Wait, really? It’s actually your birthday?”

When Takahiro doesn’t answer, the jounin shakes his head while his friend watches on in amusement. “I thought you were lying to Maeno-san to get into the bar.”

Takahiro stares at him. “I’m an academy student,” he says, stressing the last two words. “He’s a shinobi. I’m not stupid enough to try and lie to his face.”

“He’s retired though. Not that that means anything,” the jounin adds hastily when the bartender casually reaches over to grab one of the many kunai stuck in the wall.

That’s… Takahiro thought those were supposed to be decorative - though, he supposes he should have known better. Shinobi don’t do decorative, at least not unless it has a second underlying purpose.

Like stabbing annoying customers.

“Retired doesn’t mean he’s suddenly turned civilian,” Takahiro points out and the jounin shoots a last wary glance at the bartender before he huffs.

“Fair,” he says and the senbon clicks against his teeth once more, before he finally spits it out. The senbon stabs into the counter with barely a sound. 

“Maeno-san’s going to kill you,” the second jounin says conversationally, and the first jounin winces before he reaches out and hastily tucks the senbon back into his pouch. 

“If you put that back in your mouth, I’m setting Gai on you for lack of hygiene.”

“You wouldn’t.”

The scarred shinobi lets out a small hum and the other jounin grimaces.

“Bullies,” he tells Takahiro in a low voice as if the scarred shinobi isn’t sitting right beside him. “Bullies, every single one of them.”

Takahiro doesn’t smile.

The shinobi watches him for a couple of seconds before he finally lets out a sigh and leans back.

“Really, though,” he says and there’s something in his voice that makes Takahiro tense. “You shouldn’t be here. Why not study at a sweet shop or something? There’s a nice place that sells mochi just across the street.”

He knows. He’s been there before. Naruto found him just a couple of hours later. 

“I can’t.”

“Why not? Someone bothering you?”

No. Nothing is bothering him - outside of his own conscience and lack of ability to actually do anything. 

He realizes he’s taken too long to respond when one of the shinobi shifts in his seat, and he looks up to find both shinobi are looking at him far too attentively.

“No.”

Neither of them believes him. That’s fine. As long as they leave him alone, he doesn’t care.

“Okay. So who’s bothering you?”

They aren’t leaving him alone.

“What does it matter to you?” The page on belladonna crinkles alarmingly and Takahiro places the book on the counter. He resolutely refuses to look at anyone as he smooths it out.

“Kid.” There’s a creak from the stool as the jounin shifts in his seat. “You’re ten. It’s our job to watch out for civilian kids that might need help.”

“No. That’s what the Uchiha police force does,” Takahiro says, just for the sake of being contrary. “Besides, I don’t need help,” he adds, just a bit too loudly. If his hands are a bit more vicious than necessary when they smooth out the wrinkled page, no one mentions it. “I’m not in trouble.”

“Then why are you hiding in a shinobi bar?”

Because he’s a coward who can’t handle responsibility.

Takahiro keeps his lips pressed shut in a thin line.

The shinobi sighs. “Fine. At least tell us who you’re hiding from.”

“It’s the Uzumaki brat.” 

Takahiro’s head snaps up and he stares at the bartender. The retired shinobi just shrugs as he rearranges a couple of bottles on the shelf. “I’ve got eyes, kid. I’ve seen you run away from him a couple of times.”

“You’re avoiding Naruto?” the scarred jounin says and Takahiro can hear a hint of disbelief in his voice. 

He bristles. Takahiro already knows he’s being stupid. He doesn’t need someone else to tell him.

“And what if I am,” he says, voice far too sharp to be anything but defensive.

“Why?” the first shinobi - the nosier one - asks. 

His tone has changed again, Takahiro notes. And, to his bafflement, for the first time since they’ve started talking to him, it’s… less than friendly.

It occurs to him just a bit too late that they used Naruto’s given name. Maybe they know him?

Takahiro sees an opportunity and he seizes it with both hands.

“Do you know him?” he asks, his back straightening as he looks the jounin straight in the eye. 

The man blinks and his lips twitch oddly before they settle in a half-grimace. “In a sense. There’s hardly anyone who doesn’t know him.”

Takahiro doesn’t know what that means but that isn’t important when _the man knows Naruto_. “Can you take care of him?”

The shinobi’s mouth falls open while his friend chokes on thin air behind him. “What?”

Takahiro doesn’t have the patience for this. “Naruto,” he repeats bluntly, still looking at the jounin in the eye. “Can you take care of him?”

“Er,” the jounin glances to the side as he stalls.

Before Takahiro can open his mouth to repeat the question for the third time, the shinobi speaks, “What’s that have to do with anything?”

“He needs a parent. Or at least a guardian,” says Takahiro as he casts a doubtful look at the jounin in front of him. The shinobi may be an adult, but he looks to be in his early twenties, maybe even a bit younger. Not quite old enough for Takahiro to leave Naruto in his hands with a completely clear conscience - but still old enough that Takahiro is comfortable with making the younger boy mostly the shinobi’s responsibility.

Takahiro can’t leave Naruto alone, not when he’s seen how lonely Naruto’s apartment was - but he also can’t be the only one _there_. 

If he can get the jounin to stay, if he can just get him to care, then everything is solved.

Sadly, the jounin doesn’t agree.

“No,” the man says firmly as he leans back in his seat. The other jounin accepts two glasses of beer from the bartender, and hands one over to the first shinobi. He takes the glass and chugs down half of it all at once. “Absolutely not.”

“You said you knew him,” Takahiro points out. He can hear the crinkling of paper as his fingers tighten once more around the page he just smoothed out. “Naruto’s living _alone_. He’s seven. Seven-year-olds aren’t supposed to be living alone without adult supervision.” 

The jounin grimaces once more. Takahiro is fairly certain he agrees with him, but when the shinobi opens his mouth, it’s to say no. 

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” the shinobi glances back at his friend who shrugs, before turning back towards Takahiro, “reasons. Lots of reasons a kid like you wouldn’t understand.”

A page rips. “Why not?”

The jounin raises both hands in front of him. “Look, I want to tell you, I really do, but I can’t. It’s… complicated.”

“Complicated?” He tries to keep his scepticism out of his voice. He fails.

The jounin looks up to the ceiling and his lips move. Takahiro thinks he hears a few words - _Hokage, hate this, so unfair_ \- before the shinobi looks back down at him.

“Kid, it’s nice what you’re trying to do for Naruto, but it won’t work. Just… be his friend for him, alright?”

No. It’s not ‘alright’. Takahiro’s trying to find a guardian for Naruto for a reason. 

Both shinobi are looking at him expectantly, as if they think that’s enough, as if they think it’s a simple matter when it _isn’t_. It’s Takahiro’s own fault, sticking his nose into places they don’t belong, letting himself get carried away when he should have been more careful, should have given himself more time to think - but that hardly matters when it ‘should have’s can’t change anything about _now_. 

He tries to be more understanding, more open-minded about the jounin’s situation - after all, Takahiro knows he can’t tell the jounin about why _he_ can’t take care of Naruto, so there must be a reason why the jounin won’t either - but the ‘understanding’ doesn’t come easily.

 _They’re adults_ , Takahiro finds himself thinking as he stares down at the kunai marks on the bar’s counter. But more than that, they’re adults that belong in this world. Not like Takahiro who still feels like a leaf dropped onto the Naka, pulled along by the river, never quite dipping under the surface but still unable to escape the currents. They have a reason to feel responsible. They’re supposed to be responsible. They’re not supposed to push a seven-year-old onto a ten-year-old, no matter the fact that the ten-year-old isn’t actually ten.

Takahiro inhales through his nose, holds his breath till his heart feels like it’s going to burst out of his chest, and exhales through his mouth.

“Fine,” he says flatly before reaching over and grabbing his book. 

“Kid?” the jounin calls out, his brows furrowing in obvious concern as he watches Takahiro place the book in his bag.

Takahiro ignores them both until he’s packed up all of his belongings and slides off the stool. He turns to face the two men while the bartender watches them silently from behind the counter.

“If you won’t take care of Naruto, I’ll find someone else who will.” 

Both of their eyes widen, but before either of them can say anything, Takahiro turns on his heel and storms out of the pub. 

It’s still light out when he leaves. He probably has a little over three hours before it starts to grow dark.

Good. He can start searching now. 

***

It… doesn’t go as well as he’d hoped.

Which is, he has to admit, to be expected.

Just minutes after he leaves the bar, he spies Itachi leaving the Hokage tower and he has to do a one-eighty and _run_ to avoid talking to him. Takahiro has no doubt that Itachi spotted him far before Takahiro did, but the older boy refrains from chasing after him so Takahiro is grateful. He doesn’t think he can handle talking to him, not yet. 

Though, then again, if he keeps this up, he won’t be able to bring himself to talk to either Itachi or Sasuke for completely different reasons. The kinds that arise from avoiding someone for ages.

… That’s fine. He’ll deal with that when it happens.

Takahiro is becoming a master at procrastination.

With the day’s search ending in failure before it really even started, Takahiro chooses to try again tomorrow. Except it doesn’t go as he expected it to.

People are… odd. About Naruto. 

Most of his focus has always been on putting one foot in front of the other, so he hasn’t really noticed before, but now that he’s actively looking at the _people_ in relation to Naruto, it’s obvious Naruto is something of a pariah. 

“I’m sorry,” says the young woman manning the counter when she hears Takahiro lost his parents during the Kyuubi attack from seven years ago. “I, um, my parents died during that night as well-” Takahiro has to resist the urge to squirm because this sounds like the girl is about to go into far more personal territory than he was expecting, “-and, um, if you ever need something like, er, sweets? I’d be happy to-”

She cuts off abruptly, her eyes going wide as she stares at something behind him.

“Takahiro-nii!” Naruto shouts and comes barrelling into his back. “Hey, hey, what were you talking about?”

Before Takahiro can say anything, the girl shoves a box of mochi at him.

Takahiro blinks.

“It’s on me, because, well, I understand what it’s like to lose family,” she says, her eyes fixed firmly on Takahiro, with a smile that’s just a bit too wide to look natural. “Goodbye.”

If that isn’t a ‘take this and leave, please’ Takahiro doesn’t know what it is.

Naruto tends to be a bit dense, though.

“Hey,” he says as he leans forward to squint down at the box Takahiro is holding. “How come I never get free mochi, y’know?”

The girl smiles, tight and strained. “Goodbye.”

Even if Naruto can’t get a hint, Takahiro can. 

He grabs the younger boy’s hand, mutters something about how they can share, and drags him off to someplace where the girl’s bright green eyes won’t be able to follow them wherever they go.

He sees but he doesn’t understand. What makes it worse is that asking doesn’t help.

 _Stay away from him_ , people warn Takahiro, voices low and hands steady. _It’s for your own good_ , they say, their eyes darting this way and that, with just the barest of trembles on their lips. 

“But why?”

 _He’s bad news_.

_He’s dangerous._

_Stay away from it_.

Sometimes the words are spoken with disdain, sometimes with clear revulsion, sometimes with the civilians pulling on the hem of their sleeves as they shuffle their feet, but there’s always the same hint of, of _something_ that stops the indignant words from bursting out of Takahiro’s throat. 

It takes him a few days until he can place that ‘something.’ 

It’s fear, he realizes with a start when the young woman carrying a baby in a sling stumbles back away from him when Naruto nearly bowls Takahiro over. Her breath hitches and her eyes are wide for a handful of seconds, as she stares at Naruto - who’s chattering in Takahiro’s ear about how _it’s been_ ages _since he’s seen Takahiro-nii and he needs help again_ \- before she composes herself and her eyes narrow. Takahiro doesn’t think she realizes it herself, but he does. 

She angles herself so the baby pressed against her chest is half-hidden behind her shoulders, and her toes point outward as if she’s getting ready to run. She sneers at Naruto, telling him to stop making a nuisance of himself - but now that Takahiro is paying attention, he can’t ignore the tiny tremor in her voice and how, even as she speaks, her entire body tenses, her shoulders drawn taut like she’s expecting a blow.

She’s scared. Terrified. Of Naruto. 

The seven-year-old grabs Takahiro’s hand and swings it back and forth.

“C’mon, let’s go!” he shouts eagerly.

His hand is warm and soft and small in the way all children’s hands are, but there are growing calluses from all the training that takes place at the academy. Nothing too obvious - he’s only seven after all and though Takahiro rarely remembers anything, he’s fairly sure he didn’t train with weapons too much when he was seven - but they’re there. It’s like Sasuke’s hand. A normal academy student’s hand. 

The woman flinches when Naruto leans towards Takahiro. A man standing nearby jerks forward as if he’s readying himself to step in to yank the woman and Takahiro away if necessary.

Naruto beams as he bounces on the balls of his feet.

Takahiro doesn’t understand. 

He pulls his hand out of Naruto’s. 

Naruto blinks once before he looks up at him.

“I,” Takahiro’s voice cracks and he clears his suddenly dry throat. “Lead the way,” he says hoarsely as he waves his hand in front of him. 

It’s trembling, just like the way the woman’s voice trembled even as contempt spilt from her lips.

He pulls his hand down back to his side, clenches his fist, and finally, through conscious effort, his fingers still.

Naruto lets out a whoop of joy. 

Takahiro carefully keeps a couple of inches between them the entire time it takes to get to Naruto’s apartment.

_Why are they afraid of Naruto?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge thank you to everyone who reads! Stay safe and happy!


	5. Chapter 5

People don’t make sense but no one has any answers.

Takahiro stares down at his textbook, his eyes glancing over the black print before they end up focusing on the desk instead. The tips of his toes, peeking out from his sandals, barely skim the floor as he frowns. 

He begins to trace the markings in the wood with a finger; the dark brown, almost black lines and rings lead from one to another, not quite connected but not quite separate either. 

_“Uzumaki? … What about him?”_

His finger drifts over the edge, where a particularly thick line begins. He starts following it over the rounded corner, past the nicks made by bored children with their too-sharp pencils and blunted kunai.

_“He’s… I’m sorry, Takahiro-kun, but I can’t tell you much. There’s a, rule, you see.”_

It helps when he’s trying to think, having something simple to do with his hands. Fingers, if he’s being more precise. He presses down on the desk with a bit more strength where the line grows thicker, and lets his finger flit over the wood when the streak becomes barely visible. 

His mind feels a bit clearer by the time the line ends in a thick dark blob, but that doesn’t mean anything when all his thoughts, carefully slotted in shelf upon shelf, don’t make any sense.

_“Uzumaki isn’t dangerous, not by himself no but… there’s the, the possibility, that he could be.”_

“All shinobi are dangerous. Even academy students are dangerous. To civilians, at least.”

_“True, but Uzumaki is... different. I’m sorry, Takahiro-kun, but that’s all I can tell you. Just, stay away from him, alright?”_

His hand tenses and the tip of his index finger digs into a shallow chip in the desk.

It has already been two days since he talked with Katsumi-sensei, and Takahiro still can’t understand. Every single person he has talked to - the orphanage matron, Katsumi-sensei, some of the civilians who know Takahiro by name even though he doesn’t know theirs - literally everyone warns him against Naruto, but no one can tell him why he’s supposed to stay away. 

“Is it because of something his parents did? Is he, is he the son of a missing nin? A foreign nin? Kiri? Iwa?”

_“No one really knows for sure who his parents are.”_

“Does he have a bloodline? Something that, I don’t know, makes him explode or something? Poison, maybe?”

_“No, not- not quite.”_

“It’s not, it’s not a problem with _him_ , is it? What is he - bipolar? A psychopath? At risk of murdering innocent babies in their sleep?”

_“... No.”_

He hates the hesitation in their answers, especially since they never tell him anything more than ‘there _are_ reasons - just none you’re allowed to know.’

If he’d been in his old world, he might have left it at that... but this isn’t his old world. Other than the fact that people are still so damningly _human_ , this world - dream, hallucination, whatever it is - is nothing like his old world. 

There is an entire profession in which children are expected to make their first kills by the time they’re in their midteens. Their first _human_ kills. 

They already have plenty of experience with rabbits and the like by the time they’re ten.

Takahiro can still remember the day he first held the baby rabbit in his hands, its eyes wide and terrified, heart beating wildly against his palm as he held a kunai against its neck.

The kitten was small, small enough to fit snugly against Takahiro’s palm. It was most likely a deliberate choice on the part of their instructors. Baby animals invoked more of an emotional response than those that were full-grown, so if they could handle killing a baby then there was a higher chance they could handle killing an adult. 

But more importantly, they - Takahiro and the rest of his class - were children. Except for a select few, most of them wouldn’t have been able to restrain a full-grown rabbit on their own. The class was a mandatory part of the school curriculum and their two instructors, no matter the fact that they were chuunin, weren’t capable of holding over twenty rabbits at once so it was logical to give the students something they could control with minimal help. 

However logical the choice was, though, it didn’t change the fact that they were children.

Those who had shinobi parents handled it well enough with just a sniffle or two, but most of the civilian children ended up crying or shaking so badly Katsumi-sensei and Minami-sensei had to take away their kunai. Takahiro himself had to help one of the other children who’d stabbed his kitten but hadn’t quite managed to kill it.

It was one of the few times he’d been praised. 

The only reason why he hadn’t broken out into hysterical laughter immediately afterwards, was that it took him a couple of seconds to process what had happened. 

Children are encouraged to desensitize themselves to killing. People store entire libraries in a single scroll. Shinobi breathe fire and create lakes with a few hand seals. The average teenager can create bombs out of just ink and paper as long as they have an eye for detail and their hands are steady. 

It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to think that there could be living bombs as well. 

Naruto, for all his childish cheer and friendly demeanour, may just as well turn out to be something designed to kill everything in his sight. That’s certainly the way everyone acts, at least.

But no - if that were the case, he wouldn’t be allowed to wander through the streets without a keeper, would he? The Hokage, for all that he was a military dictator, cared about his people, his village. He wouldn’t let Naruto just attend the academy if he were really dangerous, would he? Even disregarding Takahiro’s personal opinions on letting a dangerous, _thing_ , around children, it doesn’t make sense. Konoha is a shinobi village. The academy raises shinobi. It would be frankly beyond stupid to put their children in danger.

Except, every time Takahiro talks himself into trusting the Hokage, he remembers - Takahiro isn’t a shinobi. This isn’t a world where he can trust everything his eyes see. 

How does he know Naruto doesn’t, in fact, have a keeper? How does he know for sure that the shinobi they run into on the street while getting the groceries or dropping by at Ichiraku for a meal are really just there by coincidence? How does he know they aren’t stationed there deliberately, so someone always knows where Naruto is? For all he knows, Naruto may have an entire squad of Anbu tracking his every movement, ready to step in at the smallest hint of danger. 

And even if Takahiro is just being paranoid and the Hokage doesn’t think Naruto needs to be watched… what are the odds that he’s looking at it from the viewpoint of a civilian and not the God of Shinobi? How can Takahiro know for sure, that what the Hokage deems ‘safe’ would actually be safe? 

Takahiro can’t use a shunshin. He can barely run at a speed thought acceptable by academy standards.

He also knows that he’s expendable.

If Naruto ever ‘explodes’ when Takahiro’s in the vicinity, there’s a high chance he won’t be able to get away fast enough. And when there were countless others to save, he doubts anyone would have the presence of mind to save a civilian orphan with little to no potential.

That’s… upsetting. 

“You’re bleeding.”

Takahiro blinks rapidly before he pulls his hand away from where he has been digging into the desk. The tip of his finger is red, the same red from his memories of rabbits and kunai, and it’s only belatedly that Takahiro realizes it stings. 

The Inuzuka sitting next to him stares as her partner whines and paws at Takahiro’s arm.

“What’s wrong with you,” the girl - her name starts with an ‘M’ he thinks, but Takahiro can’t remember anything else - hisses abruptly. She jerks forward, her hand almost touching his wrist before it stops. 

It takes Takahiro a moment to realize it’s because he flinched.

The Inuzuka looks startled for all of two seconds before she scoffs. “Civilians,” she mutters, but she’s more careful, almost insultingly so, when she reaches out to grab his wrist. 

“Toma,” she says, and her ninken immediately jumps off her lap and burrows into her bag. It comes up just seconds later, a handkerchief held between its teeth.

“Shut up,” the Inuzuka says and Takahiro glances up in surprise from where he has been staring at the pretty pink handkerchief decorated with flowers. The girl’s face is red as she snatches the handkerchief from her partner’s mouth. “It was a joke present from my cousin, okay?” she snarls as she roughly scrubs at Takahiro’s finger.

It hurts far more than when it was just bleeding, so Takahiro pulls his hand back - or rather he tries to. It’s more than a little humiliating to find that the girl is stronger than he is. 

“You’re not supposed to rub at bleeding injuries,” the Hyuuga sitting on the Inuzuka’s other side murmurs without even glancing their way. 

The Inuzuka pauses before her cheeks suddenly darken. “No one asked you,” she snaps. Her nails dig into Takahiro’s wrist and he tries not to wince.

“I was trying to be helpful,” the Hyuuga shoots back. “Maybe because your attempts at trying to help were downright pitiful.”

“I- it’s better than doing nothing!”

“Is it though?” says the Hyuuga. “Because he’s bleeding more than he was before.”

“No, he’s not-” the Inuzuka begins to protest, but then her ninken nips at her wrist and she looks down. She falters for a moment, before quickly switching tactics. “How do you know? It’s not like you can see when you’re being a teacher’s pet and won’t even look when someone’s bleeding!”

“I am a Hyuuga. Seeing is literally what we do best.”

“Yeah, well- just because you see, that doesn’t mean you’re right! What if he’s supposed to bleed more?”

“Supposed to- what are you, stupid? Actually, no, please don’t answer that. I don’t even know why I’m surprised when you slept for over half of Minami-sensei’s classes on first aid.”

“I don’t sleep! I just, doze off sometimes!”

Toma lets out a small whine and covers his eyes with his paws.

The Hyuuga actually turns in her seat to stare at the Inuzuka. “Are you serious?” she asks, her incredulity clear in her voice.

The Inuzuka flushes once more. “Like _you_ never sleep in class either!”

“I don’t.”

“Yeah? I saw you nod off during that class about the first Shinobi War!”

“I- I never-”

“Girls!” Katsumi-sensei’s voice rises and both the Inuzuka and Hyuuga immediately straighten in their seats, acting as if they hadn’t been fighting just seconds ago. “Pay attention please, and keep any disagreements outside of the classroom.”

“Yes, sensei,” says the Hyuuga primly, while the Inuzuka scowls as she points.

“What about _him_? He wasn’t paying attention either!”

Takahiro stares.

Katsumi-sensei’s eyes dart to Takahiro once before they return to the Inuzuka. “Takahiro-kun hasn’t done anything to disrupt the class. Now quiet down, Mimi-chan, before I have you step out into the hallway.”

Mimi slouches down in her seat. “It’s unfair,” she mutters under her breath as she slants her eyes towards Takahiro, who’s steadily growing more and more uncomfortable with how this has somehow escalated so much. “Why does _he_ always get a free pass in everything?”

“Murakami-san hasn’t actually done anything,” says the Hyuuga though the corner of her lips tilts downward as well.

“Yeah, if you ignore how he wasn’t listening to anything Katsumi-sensei was saying,” says Mimi. “He _never_ gets into any trouble! Even though he’s always at the bottom of the class and never does anything right!”

“What did you expect,” says the Hyuuga cooly. “He’s Katsumi-sensei’s favourite. Of course it’s unfair.”

_Of course it’s unfair._

He’d been listening to the two girls talk with something close to bemusement that had steadily - abruptly - shifted to unease. 

Somehow, the Hyuuga still manages to take him by surprise. 

The words, spoken with childish discontent and no real malice, slip in between the cracks like thin wire and lodges themselves at the forefront of his mind. 

_It’s unfair._

Takahiro’s hands clench around the bright, happily pink handkerchief, and he stares down at the textbook written in a language he only recently learned to read with some semblance of fluency.

He tries to understand, he really does - a part of him knows why they think it’s unfair, and if he were in their shoes he might have thought the same - but ‘understanding’ isn’t something done easily, not when he’s still human and that means feelings tend to cloud over reason. They think it’s unfair because, what, Katsumi-sensei is laxer with him? Because he doesn’t get on Takahiro’s case like he does with that civilian girl whenever she shows up late for class? Because he might be the only one who sees Takahiro and says ‘please’ instead of turning the other way?

How is it unfair when that’s all Takahiro has?

When he has lost everything, to dreams and impossibilities and black, grey, and white - and yet he’s _still_ losing everything?

How can they, how can they call it unfair that he - he doesn’t even know - that he’s _Katsumi-sensei’s favourite_ of all things?

Takahiro is… he doesn’t know what he is, because they’re children and he’s an adult and he’s not supposed to get angry at them for not knowing, not understanding something he’s kept secret, something that’s beyond their comprehension and yet-

He is. Angry. 

It’s unfair. 

“Give that back,” Mimi snaps as she snatches the handkerchief out of Takahiro’s hands.

He tries not to think of how empty they are and keeps his lips pressed together in a thin line until they’re dismissed. 

***

“Takahiro-kun, a word, please.”

He jerks to a stop from where he’s grabbed his bag and already has it half slung over his shoulder. For a moment, Takahiro considers pretending he can’t hear Katsumi-sensei over the sound of children shouting and laughing - but he’s already stopped and if he leaves now, it’ll be obvious he deliberately ignored a request (order) from his instructor.

Slowly, he places his bag back down on the desk. 

Far too soon, it’s just Takahiro, Katsumi-sensei and Minami-sensei left in the classroom. After a brief glance at Takahiro and Katsumi, Minami-sensei moves towards her desk and begins grading papers. It’s all very deliberate, how she seems to focus the entirety of her attention on the chicken scratch and barely coherent essays the children have drafted. Takahiro doesn’t believe in it for a second. 

Katsumi-sensei watches him carefully - _looking for tells_ , a part of Takahiro’s mind offers, quite unhelpfully seeing as he doesn’t know what the ‘tells’ were supposed to actually _tell_ \- before he opens his mouth.

“Is your finger alright?”

Takahiro stares up at him in disbelief for a moment, before pointedly inclining his head so the child’s fist-sized bruise he knows is darkening on his neck is in full view. Anyone who says clanless children don’t hit hard is a lying liar who lies. They hit just as hard as the children from clans. He has the bruises to prove it.

“Ah,” says Katsumi-sensei before clearing his throat. “Is your neck alright?”

“Yes, sensei,” says Takahiro dryly. He hesitates a moment but because Katsumi-sensei is nice and Takahiro owes him so much, he adds, “my finger’s fine too.”

“That’s nice to hear.” Katsumi-sensei gives him a smile. “So, can you tell me what happened during class?”

“Shouldn’t you be asking Mimi?” Or the Hyuuga. Takahiro doesn’t think it would be acceptable to let it show that he doesn’t know her name so he doesn’t mention her.

Katsumi-sensei hesitates. 

Takahiro narrows his eyes. “This isn’t about today’s class.”

Katsumi-sensei’s shoulders slump while the fingers on his left hand twitches. 

Takahiro takes that as confirmation.

Silence follows, and though Takahiro normally doesn’t mind silence - after all, he’s usually the one who instigates it - this time it feels… false. It’s too quiet. After a moment, he realizes it’s because Minami-sensei has stopped grading the essays. 

He lifts his eyes from where they’d been staring at Katsumi-sensei’s fingers (there’s a burn mark on most of his hand, big enough that Takahiro thinks there might have been some nerve damage - maybe that’s why he’s an academy teacher?) to find that both Katsumi-sensei and Minami-sensei are watching him. 

“See,” says Katsumi-sensei when he sees he has Takahiro’s full attention. “I told you he was sharp.”

“It might have been a coincidence,” Minami-sensei replies. “People watch others all the time.”

“Not so specifically.”

“Fair.” Minami-sensei eyes Takahiro curiously, except... he has no idea why. 

When Takahiro does nothing but stares back at her, Katsumi-sensei lets out a huff. 

“You watch my left hand,” he says without preamble. 

And? 

“Could you explain why?”

Takahiro isn’t quite sure what the purpose is behind the question, but the sooner he answers, the sooner he gets to leave.

“Because it twitches,” he says. “When you’re serious. About stuff.” 

“Well,” says Minami-sensei after a moment. She’s staring and Takahiro resists the urge to fidget. “I’ll be damned. You’re right. Is it because of the Uchihas?”

“No.” It’s Katsumi-sensei who answers because Takahiro still has absolutely no idea what’s going on. “He was doing it before he met Shisui and I’m pretty sure one of the reasons why Shisui and Itachi stuck by him is _because_ he’s sharp. Sharper than he lets on anyway.”

No he isn’t. He’s just an adult stuck in a ten-year-old’s body that’s all.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

Both adults pause to look at him. 

“Nothing, directly, but indirectly?” says Katsumi-sensei. “You’re intelligent, Takahiro-kun, I know you are. Not in the usual sense,” he adds, his voice just a touch dry, before he continues. “You’re… mature. You’re still obviously a child,” and how Takahiro wants to _laugh_ at that, “but you think of and understand things beyond what’s expected of your age.”

No he isn’t. No he doesn’t. 

Takahiro is an _adult_ , of course he’d be more ‘mature’ than children less than half his age, but that doesn’t mean he’s observant. He wonders if Katsumi-sensei would be saying the same thing if he knew Takahiro doesn’t know the names of any of his classmates. Except for Inuzuka Mimi, but he only learned her name today so that doesn’t count.

“So?”

“You don’t get along with any of your peers.”

Because they’re not his peers.

“You think of them as children. Someone you need to help. Someone you’re responsible for. Which is why,” Katsumi-sensei pauses and Takahiro’s eyes are drawn to his left hand once more, “you’re… attached to Uzumaki. Because,” he raises his voice to drown out the words Takahiro hasn’t even spoken yet, “you think he needs a guardian. And he acts like you’re responsible for him.”

“I’m not. He doesn’t,” the words spill out before he can stop them. “He just, _he_ attached himself to me because no one else will help, except- you said, you told me to stay away.”

“I did,” agrees Katsumi-sensei matter of fact. “You’re a child, Takahiro-kun, no matter how mature you might be or how much of a responsibility you may feel you have. It’s,” he hesitates, “think of it this way. Itachi is a jounin even though he’s only thirteen. He’s also Sasuke’s older brother. That doesn’t mean he’s responsible for Sasuke’s well-being. Well, he is to a point, but not entirely. It’s Mikoto-sama and Fugaku-sama, who are responsible for keeping Sasuke fed, clothed and safe, not Itachi’s. Do you understand what I’m trying to say?”

“You’re telling me I’m not responsible for Naruto,” says Takahiro. His voice falls flat because, because-

“Exactly,” says Katsumi-sensei. He eyes Takahiro carefully, though, like he knows Takahiro doesn’t agree - which he _doesn’t_ , because that’s not, he’s making an _excuse_ \- “Leave Uzumaki to the adults, Takahiro-kun, and instead try talking with Itachi and Sasuke, won’t you? I hear Sasuke misses you quite a bit.”

“So?”

He can hear Minami-sensei pause while grading because of the sudden silence.

“What does it matter,” says Takahiro, his voice tight and barely controlled. “What Sasuke thinks.”

“He,” Katsumi-sensei looks taken aback and he barely gets a word in before he falls silent. He glances at Minami-sensei but she just shakes her head, her lips pulled down in a small frown.

Takahiro doesn’t care.

“It’s not the same. Don’t act like a clan kid and a clanless orphan are the same. Sasuke has Itachi, doesn’t he? He has his brother, his parents, an entire _clan_ \- he doesn’t need me.”

“Takahiro-kun-”

“Don’t,” Takahiro hisses. He doesn’t know when it was he took a step back, but he bumps against the desk behind his. “Don’t tell me I should stay away from Naruto because I’m not responsible for him when, when it’s everyone else that’s just, I don’t know, dumping the responsibility on everyone else!” 

Katsumi-sensei and Minami-sensei are staring. A part of him thinks it’s most likely because they’ve never seen him speak so much in a single sitting, but he can’t really bring himself to care, not when the words won’t stop and he doesn’t _want_ them to stop.

“Don’t make up a stupid excuse that doesn’t even make sense in context. Naruto isn’t Sasuke and I’m not Itachi. He needs an adult because he doesn’t _have_ an adult, and I already know I’m not responsible for him, I _can’t_ be responsible for him - so I tried, okay? I tried to find someone who’d just, just drop by once in a while to check if the toilet’s clean and if Naruto’s eating anything other than instant ramen but everyone says _no_. I don’t want to be responsible for him.”

He’s breathing heavily. The roar of his blood pulsing through his ears, so much like the river that just won’t go away, the dizziness in his head that so resembles the feeling of lacking air, makes him think that maybe, maybe everything in this life was just a dream and he’s actually drowning somewhere somehow - but he feels wood under his fingers and smells green in the too fresh air.

“Then don’t,” interjects Katsumi-sensei immediately. “He isn’t yours to take care of.”

“ _I know he’s not my responsibility_.” He grips the back of his chair tightly to keep his nails from digging into his palm. “Funny isn’t it, though, how somehow he is. Because no one else is doing anything.”

There’s silence once more, except this one feels stifling, like the silence that comes from having one’s ears clogged with water. It’s a silence that crushes, that fills every hole, every crevice, until he opens his mouth because he needs air. He needs to _breathe_.

“It’s not my fault I’m the only one who helps him with stuff. Did you know? There’s this clothes shop half an hour away from the centre of the village that won’t sell Naruto anything. I thought- I thought someone would step in. There are holes in his socks that are too big for him to sew shut, so he needs to get new socks but the closest shop to his apartment won’t let him in. And there were adults nearby except, no one was doing anything. They just, they just watched as the owner kicked him out and- how does that make sense? He needed _socks_. He wasn’t trying to hurt anyone. I know you don’t want me to help him because he’s _dangerous_ except I don’t even know if he’s dangerous because I’m a student or if it’s because he’s just dangerous in general but no one else does anything and he’s also a kid, isn’t he? Except people don’t act like he’s a kid but _he_ does and how am I supposed to know what to do if no one fucking _tells_ me-”

“Takahiro-kun, Takahiro, you need to calm down-”

“Don’t tell me to calm down!” He shrugs off the hands on his shoulders and takes another step back. The wood from the desk behind him digs into his back almost painfully. “You’re the one that pushed! If you’d just, if people would just act like actual adults then I wouldn’t have to think about this in the first place! But no one does and everyone just acts like there’s a monster running around the village-” 

A flinch. Katsumi-sensei _flinched_.

Takahiro stares at the instructor’s left hand for a couple of seconds before he looks up at his teacher with wide eyes.

Not a bomb, a corner of his mind whispers and he remembers Shisui telling him about summons - abnormal creatures of all kinds, some even capable of levelling buildings if they chose to.

He remembers learning about the Yondaime and how he sacrificed his life to seal away the monster that killed ‘Takahiro’s’ parents.

“Is he?” His voice comes out strained and thin. “Is he a monster?”

It takes far too long for Katsumi-sensei to answer. 

“I’m sorry. I can’t tell you anything more than that, and I’m sorry for it.”

The air leaves Takahiro’s lungs and all that’s left is a sense of drowning.

It’s not fair.

***

“Takahiro-nii!”

The… talk he had with Katsumi-sensei means it’s long after the school day ended when he leaves the classroom so it’s no surprise to find that he has failed to leave before Naruto arrives. 

The boy beams up at him and grabs his hand.

Takahiro yanks it out of Naruto’s grasp to grip the strap of his bag with white-knuckles.

“What do you want.”

Naruto falters, his hand hovering in the space between them for a moment, before he pulls it away to scratch the back of his neck with a sheepish grin.

“Iruka-sensei says we’re going to practice throwing kunai tomorrow but I kind of forgot to get them, y’know, so I have to get them today but I’m not good at getting good stuff ‘cause it’s hard to tell what’s good and what’s bad, but I don’t want to get bad stuff, y’know? So I thought Takahiro-nii could help! ‘Cause you’re really good at telling what’s good and what’s bad.”

“Can’t you ask someone else?”

“Huh?”

“I said,” says Takahiro as he ignores the way Naruto squints up at him. “Can’t you ask someone else.”

“I, uh,” Naruto flounders for a moment before he settles for, “but Takahiro-nii’s the best!” 

“No, I’m not,” says Takahiro. Something pinches in his chest.

“But you kind of are?”

“I- could you just stop that?”

Naruto’s mouth shuts with an audible click. He stares up at Takahiro with unbridled hurt, and though Takahiro would normally feel guilty about raising his voice, the guilt is buried under the churning currents of a river so dark and deep he can’t see the bottom.

Naruto is a child. He comes up to Takahiro asking for help with the most basic of chores, and no matter how many times Takahiro tells him he doesn’t need to, he always buys him ramen afterwards. He smiles despite how the family of four crossed the street just to avoid walking near him, and he scrunches his nose whenever Takahiro tries to make him eat carrots.

And, if he understood correctly, Naruto is also a monster.

Fear is catching. It spreads like a thick fog that descends from the sky over the sea, obscuring his view until he can barely see his own hand when it’s held out in front of him. It blinds and it confuses, but despite the fact that he knows there’s nothing there but the wide, wide ocean, he also knows that if something did appear, he wouldn’t be able to tell until it’s too late.

 _Naruto is a child_ , part of him shouts. _He may also be the reason why there are so many children in the orphanage_ , another part whispers.

Takahiro knows he doesn’t have enough information to make an accurate judgement about anything. He may have misunderstood Katsumi-sensei ( _but he’s at least a chuunin, he wouldn’t let himself be misunderstood, not unless he wanted to_ ) or Katsumi-sensei may have simply been wrong ( _but he’s at least a_ chuunin - _would he be wrong?_ ). Even if Naruto was the Kyuubi, there might be a reason as to why he attacked Konoha that night ( _but what kind of reason makes it right?_ ). 

For days, Takahiro wanted to know why. 

Now that he actually does, he wishes he didn’t know. At least then, he wouldn’t find himself thinking that maybe, just maybe, _Naruto deserves to be treated the way he is._

Takahiro is confused, apprehensive, and scared - but he’s also guilty, ashamed, and tired. But most of all, he’s angry because everything about the situation is so unfair. This shouldn’t be his responsibility. He shouldn’t have to feel guilty just because Takahiro wants to step away - but in the end, he does because Naruto is a child and yet he’s not.

It’s not fair how every time he lets himself get close to someone, it turns out to be a mistake. 

It would have been easier if he’d never met Naruto in the first place. If he’d looked at the expiration date on the carton of milk and just gave it back without a word.

“Did I do something wrong?”

Yes. No. Maybe. 

It’s not Naruto’s fault. And yet it is.

“I’m, I’m sorry. I won’t do it again, I promise.”

Naruto reaches out with small, dirty fingers. They catch the tip of Takahiro’s sleeve in a grip so delicate, it’s almost like Naruto’s holding a butterfly by its near-transparent wings. 

He acts as if he’s afraid Takahiro will fly away and never come back.

And maybe Takahiro should.

Takahiro takes a step back and his sleeve falls out of Naruto’s grasp. 

“I’m sorry.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing a character who has incomplete information and still has to make relatable decisions is _hard_. I hope it worked out, though?
> 
> Anyway, a huge thank you to everyone who reads this! I appreciate all of you! Stay safe and happy :D


	6. Chapter 6

Takahiro turns around and walks away. 

“Takahiro-nii!” Naruto calls out, his voice high and frail - it cracks a bit at the end as if his throat has suddenly gone dry, but Takahiro doesn’t turn back. 

For a couple of seconds, he thinks of nothing but his feet, steadily moving forward, one after the other. He isn’t running away. He’s just… putting some distance between them, that’s all, so his steps are slow and measured. 

But the footsteps that reach his ears aren’t. They start off irregularly, with two shuffles before one loud thud, but soon they pick up a steady rhythm that, bit by bit, increases in speed. They’re loud, far louder than any shinobi should be.

“Takahiro-nii!” Naruto calls out once more, this time his voice stronger but somehow just as fragile. He’s close, Takahiro can tell he’s close, but still, he puts his left foot in front of his right. They- _he_ is almost at the edge of the academy grounds. Just a few more steps left but-

“I’m sorry!” A hand wraps around the back of his shirt and pulls. Takahiro loses his balance for a second, but his right foot lands a couple of inches behind his left and he doesn’t fall. He does have to stop, though, and he resolutely keeps his eyes fixed in front of him.

“I’m sorry, y’know? I’ll- I can get the kunai by myself! And, and I know how to use the washing machine now so you don’t have to teach me y’know, and I can cook curry so Takahiro-nii doesn’t have to cook all the time, or I can ask Teuchi-ji for an extra bit of pork when we get ramen and I’ll pay for it! I’ve been saving, y’know! And if you don’t want ramen I can, I can ask Teuchi-ji if you could get something else and just eat it with me and I’ll get two bowls of ramen and eat them all so it isn’t rude like you said it was and, and- I don’t know what I have to do, but I’ll do it!” Naruto babbles, both hands tangled firmly in Takahiro’s shirt. Takahiro doesn’t listen - he doesn’t want to listen so he tries to take a step forward, but Naruto pulls once more, making Takahiro take another step backwards. 

Naruto has never been this forceful with Takahiro before. Except for his far too boisterous greetings, he’d always treated Takahiro like he was something precious and delicate, never straying far, always hovering by Takahiro’s side, close enough that Takahiro could practically feel the warmth radiating off him in waves. It was as if he thought Takahiro was something to be watched, not touched, not unless he had no other choice. 

Except for his hands. Takahiro stretches his fingers. They’re tense. He’d kept them wrapped around the strap of his bag for too long with far too much strength, and his joints ache. He wishes he had something warm to hold, but.

That’s not an option.

“Do you, uh, d’you like flowers? Ino’s loud but she’s pretty smart and she says people like flowers and they’re the best kind of present which is stupid ‘cause ramen’s obviously better y’know, but Sakura-chan said flowers were nice so if you like flowers I can get you some? There’s a whole lot of pretty flowers next to Haruhi-obaa’s tea shop and I can be really sneaky and pick a bunch- or, or a dog! Kiba says he’s getting a puppy when he turns ten and dogs are the best! I’ll find a puppy for you! One that’s a lot cooler than Kiba’s y’know!”

Naruto tugs at his shirt and Takahiro can feel the fabric stretch. The edges are fraying and so is he. He tries to pry Naruto’s fingers off, but it only makes him hold on tighter.

“I’m sorry,” Naruto repeats and he sounds like he’s on the verge of tears. “I don’t, I don’t know what I did wrong but if you, if you tell me I won’t do it again y’know? I promise. So, so don’t go. Please? You’re my friend.”

The fraying edges tear.

Takahiro slaps Naruto’s hands away, hard enough that he knows it’s going to leave a mark.

“I’m not,” he hisses at a startled Naruto. “You’re not my friend - you’re, you’re a _burden_. You do know what that is, don’t you? Something you want to get rid of but can’t because, because you keep following me around like you think I’m responsible for you, and I’m tired. Of everything. Of you. I don’t like flowers, I don’t like dogs, I don’t want you to, I don’t know, cook by yourself- actually, no, I _do_ want you to learn how to do things on your own so you can _leave. Me. The fuck. Alone._ ” 

“But,” Naruto starts to say, his voice small and timid. “But you helped. No one helps.”

A part of him is screaming at him to stop. It tries to keep his jaw clenched shut, his tongue heavy and thick, his throat tight - but a cascade of everything that accumulated during the past couple of days pushes it roughly to the side and the words pour out.

“You don’t honestly think that was for _you_ , do you? I was bored. It was just on a whim. I don’t care about you anymore so go away.”

“That’s not- that’s stupid.” 

Naruto is getting angry, Takahiro thinks distantly through the haze in his mind. The boy, standing nearly an entire head shorter than Takahiro, leans forward onto the balls of his feet. He shoves his head into Takahiro’s space and Takahiro takes an involuntary step backwards.

“I don’t know what a whim is but it’s stupid. No one just helps. Takahiro-nii’s nice and I don’t know why you’re trying not to be nice anymore-”

“Don’t call me that-”

“-but it’s stupid and you’re being stupid!”

“ _I’m_ being stupid?” Takahiro snarls. Naruto nods furiously as he glares, and Takahiro wants to take another step back but he keeps his feet planted firmly in the ground. He grabs at the straps of his bag once more, and he holds them tight to keep his fingers from twitching. 

He draws in a deep breath.

“Fine,” he says, his voice flat and almost robotic. Naruto flinches and for the first time, instead of moving forward, he draws back. “I’m stupid and being unreasonable. And I’m going to stay stupid and unreasonable so. Go. Away.”

He’s so, so tired.

“You’re not supposed to be stupid-”

“And how do you know that? You don’t know shit about me.” No one does, not in any way that matters. “You knew me for what, a month?”

“Thirty-eight days,” Naruto mutters and Takahiro wants to _laugh_.

“And I’ve been avoiding you for nearly half that time,” he points out. “We were acquaintances at best, and now I don’t want to say ‘hi’ anymore.” Naruto flinches once more before his mouth tightens and his jaw clenches. 

“You said you wanted to, y’know,” he says, his fists clenched and jaw set - but his voice wobbles and his nose scrunches up so he ends up squinting.

Takahiro thinks he might be crying.

“I did,” says Takahiro. “And I regret it. I regret ever meeting you, and I wish I never spoke to you in the first place. Go away and don’t bother me again.”

This time when he turns around and leaves, Naruto doesn’t come after him. He shouts something - cries, pleads - but Takahiro doesn’t hear any footsteps but his own.

Katsumi-sensei will be pleased. 

He doesn’t know if it’s because he can’t stand the thought of going to the academy and seeing Katsumi-sensei smile at him warm and relieved, but when he wakes up the next morning to the orphanage matron’s voice, he doesn’t get up. It’s not that he can’t.

It just… doesn’t feel like it’s worth the effort.

He’s tired. 

It’s like he’s trapped miles underwater. Every movement, every blink, every breath he takes feels sluggish, as if there are weights around his arms, legs, and on his chest. Everything takes effort, far more than he can spare to give, so he lies there in his bed, drawing in slow deep breaths, listening to the sound of children laughing and yelling as they go about their day. He should move, he thinks. He needs to get up, go to school, take a shower - but he’s tired. 

He doesn’t go back to sleep. He can’t, not when his eyes stay open, staring at the white wall (and it’s been so long since he’s really seen the _white_ that it feels oddly foreign) for minutes that turn into hours, and it’s not until his roommate asks him whether he’s gotten up at all that day, that he realizes it’s time for dinner.

He should eat. Takahiro is nowhere near fit enough that he can afford to skip a meal and keep up with the physical exercises the academy puts him through, but- he didn’t go to school today. 

Skipping one more meal couldn’t hurt.

He pulls the blanket up to his head, ignores his roommate, and goes to sleep.

The next day goes- not quite the same but similar enough. He wakes up, far earlier than he’s used to, and it takes him a couple of minutes to realize it’s because he’s hungry. His stomach cramps and Takahiro lies in his bed, curled up in a ball as he wraps his arms around his front. It’s not too bad, he tells himself from under the thin blanket that can’t quite manage to block out the light from the slowly brightening sky. He was a college student once - he’s gone without meals when he was too busy before.

Hunger pangs die down after some time. All he needs to do is wait it out.

Once more the matron calls everyone to breakfast, and once more Takahiro ignores her. He keeps his eyes shut tight as he stays lying on his side, knees pulled up and head pulled down. It’s easier this way. If he doesn’t do anything, then no one can say he wasted time and energy on something that won’t ever mean anything. 

He doesn’t have to be disappointed. He doesn’t have to disappoint.

When he skips lunch as well, the matron sends one of the younger children up to his room with a bowl of rice and some miso soup.

“Are you dying?” the little girl asks as she sets the tray down on his desk. 

When Takahiro doesn’t answer, the child’s eyes widen and she takes a step back.

“Kaede-san!” she hollers into the hallway, her voice surprisingly loud and clear for a five-year-old. “I think he’s dying!”

He only gets up to eat when the matron threatens to take him to the hospital. 

They don’t understand. There’s nothing wrong with him. He’s just… tired, that’s all. He’ll be fine by tomorrow.

Except he isn’t.

He skips school once more. It’s becoming something of a habit. A nice one in that he doesn’t have to deal with the headaches of meeting certain people and avoiding others. Why hadn’t he thought of this sooner?

It turns out the answer is simple; Katsumi-sensei wouldn’t let him.

He tries to stay in bed for the fourth day in a row. He fails. Sort of. In a way.

Katsumi-sensei shows up at the orphanage a little after ten in the morning and physically picks him up out of bed. 

“Shower,” he says firmly as he carefully sets him down on his feet. The back of his hand brushes against Takahiro’s forehead and his frown eases a bit. It comes back when Takahiro speaks.

“Why?” His voice cracks like the ground after a drought - which isn’t that inaccurate, now that he thinks of it. He might have had something to drink late last night, but he isn’t quite sure. 

“Have you been drinking and eating at all?” Katsumi-sensei asks instead of answering his question. He glances at the doorway once before turning his full attention at Takahiro once more. “Hasn’t anyone been taking care of you?”

Takahiro stares.

Katsumi-sensei pauses. “Nevermind. Take a shower, Takahiro-kun. You stink. We’ll talk about you playing hooky afterwards.”

Reluctantly, slowly, Takahiro makes his way towards the bathroom. He closes the door and strips out of his clothes - only to remember he hasn’t brought anything to change into when he gets out. Oh well. Katsumi-sensei’s a full-grown shinobi, he would have noticed. Hopefully, he’ll bring something for him.

Once he turns on the shower and lets the water run over him, it becomes obvious that this is possibly his first shower in days. His hair is greasy, awfully greasy, so he uses a generous amount of shampoo. It feels odd in his hair and between his fingers, so he wastes no time in rinsing it out. 

It’s when he starts drying that he realizes something is wrong.

The towel he’s using is… green. He’s fairly certain it used to be white. Just seconds ago. 

He stares down at the green smudge on the otherwise white towel.

“Takahiro-kun, you didn’t bring a change of clothes with you so I brought some from your wardrobe. Do you want me to leave them out here or would you rather I hand them to you?”

When he doesn’t answer after a couple of seconds, Katsumi-sensei calls out his name once more. There’s a brief pause before the door opens.

“Takahiro- what happened to your hair?”

He doesn’t know either. 

His normally golden brown hair is now bright green. The type of green you only see on badly made fake plants that don’t even bother trying to look real. It gives his pale skin an odd tinge, and when Takahiro looks at himself through the mirror, coupled with the bags under his eyes, he looks sickly and wrong. 

“It’s green,” Takahiro answers belatedly. Because that’s what it is.

His hair is green.

***

Naruto’s pranks don’t stop there. 

Takahiro goes to the academy and reaches into his bag to find a handful of frogs sitting on his textbook. He opens the door to an empty classroom and a bucket of chalk powder tips over his head. He leaves the orphanage in the morning to trip over a string of transparent tape just above the ground - and so on.

It’s nothing too serious. The frogs are just your run of the mill frogs, not the ones that are toxic, so he picks them up and lets them loose outside of the classroom. The bucket of chalk powder is carefully set so it’s only the powder that spills out and the bucket doesn’t fall. There are a bunch of leaves and pieces of grass piled up in front of the orphanage door so when he trips, the fall doesn’t hurt. 

All the pranks are just… mildly inconvenient. Considering they live in a shinobi village where certain types of weak poisons and relatively dangerous animals are readily available to even academy students, it’s almost like Naruto is taking extra care to be as utterly harmless as he could be.

Which makes things all the odder.

Takahiro isn’t quite sure what Naruto is trying to do. If it’s revenge he’s utterly horrible at it, and if he’s trying to needle Takahiro into caring about him again - well, he’s utterly horrible at it. Takahiro couldn’t care less if his hair is brown or green or is covered in a thin sheet of white powder. The pranks hardly bother him and the only thing Naruto really succeeds at doing is reminding Takahiro that he’s still there. 

Not that he can forget when every time he turns around, Naruto is standing just a couple of feet away, pretending he’s immersed in something or other. 

He doesn’t try to reach out to Takahiro. He doesn’t talk to him, outwardly acknowledge him, or even look at him (or rather, he does so covertly - Takahiro has caught him staring a couple of times when the younger boy didn’t turn away quickly enough). He’s just following him around, tailing him like those two girls who used to tail Itachi before Shisui chased them off, so Takahiro can’t really tell him to leave even though he wants to. 

Naruto sticks too close for Takahiro to forget him, but he stays far enough away that Takahiro doesn’t have any justification to run him off. So he doesn’t do either. He doesn’t forget he’s there but he doesn’t acknowledge him in any way that counts. They just… coexist. 

The guilt and confusion are both exhausting and maddening.

Takahiro resorts to looking for places Naruto can’t access once more. He tries the shinobi bar where he first came up with the idea of finding Naruto a guardian (and isn’t it strange, how that was just two weeks ago when it feels like it has been months?) except the second he steps out, he’s bombarded with a flurry of goose feathers when Naruto lets loose a harmless explosion in his face that destroys a bunch of perfectly good pillows. 

He can hear a group of shinobi laughing behind him even though the sound is muffled by literal stuffing. 

It takes a while to pick out every single piece of down that has gotten caught amongst his curls, but other than that, he’s fine. Even though Naruto used a minor explosive tag that should have singed his hair at the very least, from that distance, it didn’t hurt him. At all. The only way for that to make sense is if Naruto had the tag modified - except why? Why would he take care to make an already academy-proofed tag even safer? When Takahiro had been- had been _cruel?_

Because that’s what he was.

(There are many things he regrets in his life. The way he spoke to Naruto that day is one of them.)

It doesn’t make sense. Nothing that Naruto does makes sense. The pranks the seven-year-old plays are just that - childish pranks. They aren’t meant to humiliate - embarrass, yes, but not humiliate - and nothing he does goes anywhere near dangerous. It’s like Naruto is actually going out of his way to be careful, and that doesn’t make sense at all.

He acts like a child when he isn’t. He acts like he cares when he shouldn’t.

Things would be so much easier for Takahiro if Naruto would just act like the way the villagers expect of him. 

Instead, when a prank gone wrong ends up with Takahiro falling into a large pond on the outskirts of the village, Naruto jumps in as well to ‘save’ him.

“What were you thinking,” Takahiro hisses as he drags a sputtering Naruto out onto the bank.

“I, uh.” Naruto flails as his arms spin wildly, as if he’s still in the deep end of the pond, trying to swim _when he doesn’t even know how-_ “I thought Takahiro-nii didn’t know how to swim!”

“The academy has a mandatory class for kids who can’t,” Takahiro snaps as he pulls Naruto’s jacket off and starts twisting it, trying to wring as much water out as he can. “You know, the one you obviously haven’t taken yet?”

“I know how to swim, y’know!” Naruto immediately protests. He tries for a scowl but fails when his teeth start chattering. It’s fairly chilly for mid-April, and at the moment, Naruto is dressed in only a thin white t-shirt and a pair of shorts. After a brief hesitation, Takahiro reaches over and grabs the jacket he’d tossed off to the side.

“Here,” he says as he holds his jacket out to Naruto. “You’ll catch a cold.” 

The sleeves and back are wet from when he fell into the pond, but seeing as the part he fell into was fairly shallow - unlike where Naruto decided to jump in - and he’d taken it off before diving into fish Naruto out when it turned out the idiot didn’t know how to swim, it’s still mostly dry. 

Naruto hesitates before he takes it with both hands. “Thanks,” he mutters as he hugs it close to his chest.

“Put it on,” says Takahiro and after a bit more posturing, Naruto does as he’s told. “Go home, take a shower, and dry off. I want my jacket back by the end of the week.”

“You could just come with me and-”

“No.” He cuts Naruto off before the younger boy can finish his sentence. “I’m not your friend.”

Whether he undermines his own words by immediately trying to dry Naruto’s hair, is irrelevant.

He’s an adult, goddamnit. He can’t just let a seven-year-old walk around soaked to the bone and trembling.

“Your lips are kind of blue, y’know.” 

“Shut up.”

“... Do you want your jacket back?”

“I told you to shut up.”

In the end, though, Naruto does end up returning Takahiro’s jacket. He’d forgotten the boy ran hot, so by the time Takahiro is satisfied with his work, Naruto has stopped shaking while Takahiro has turned pale and shivers wrack his entire body.

“Are you going to die?” Naruto asks with wide eyes when Takahiro lets out a full body tremor.

“What are you, five?” Takahiro asks irritably as he pulls his jacket closer to his body, trying to conserve what warmth that’s leftover from when Naruto had been wearing it. “No, I’m not dying. Now go away.”

“I was just being responsible, y’know,” Naruto mutters. “Besides - I don’t care if Takahiro-nii dies or not ‘cause we’re not friends anymore!”

All of a sudden, Naruto straightens and crosses his arms over his chest. He throws his chin up in the air, and he squints down at Takahiro. Or rather, he tries. Takahiro thinks he’s trying to look confident and maybe even intimidating, but he’s shorter than Takahiro so all he does is look ridiculous. 

Takahiro levels an unimpressed look at Naruto, and after a moment, the boy deflates though he keeps the scowl.

“You’re stupid,” he says as he kicks at the ground. “You’re stupid and I hate you and I don’t care if Takahiro-nii drowns or not.”

“I told you not to call me that,” says Takahiro wearily. The shivers have died down so they aren’t as noticeable, but now it feels as if there’s a bone-deep chill that clings to every part of his body. He doesn’t doubt that he’ll come down with a fever the next day - all he can do is hope that Katsumi-sensei actually believes he’s sick and doesn’t try to drag him off to the academy.

“I didn’t,” Naruto blatantly lies.

“No, you didn’t,” Takahiro agrees because he can’t be bothered to argue. He hands Naruto the boy’s now slightly drier jacket before he turns away. He only manages to take a few steps when something tugs at his shirt.

“You can’t die, y’know!”

Naruto’s voice is loud, too loud, and Takahiro barely suppresses a wince at the way it makes his head hurt. He half turns - to do what, he isn’t quite sure - but before he can open his mouth, Naruto snatches his hand back as if he’s been burned.

“You’re too stupid to die!” he announces before he sprints by Takahiro and throws himself over a shrub, runs over a carefully cultivated garden, stepping on flowers everywhere, and disappears. 

Takahiro stares after him. 

Something uncomfortable twists in the bottom of his stomach.

***

Apparently, there’s a line Takahiro crossed when he chose to keep Naruto from drowning, because all of a sudden, Naruto seems to think he’s allowed to talk to Takahiro now. They’re not friends, at least not yet according to Naruto, but whatever distance Naruto has been keeping between them drops drastically until he’s constantly in Takahiro’s space. 

Every morning, without fail, he shows up in front of the orphanage and yells something along the lines of how he’s _going to Ichirakus and Takahiro-nii can’t come ‘cause Ichiraku is Naruto’s_ , and every day after school is over, he appears next to Takahiro and shouts that he’s _learned a bunch of cool jutsus today and he’s going to be Hokage soon, just you wait!_ Whenever Takahiro tries to go anywhere, Naruto follows him around, loudly talking about how Naruto _knows the best places to train but he wasn’t going to tell Takahiro-nii ‘cause Takahiro-nii’s too stupid to share them with him_ \- and though Takahiro usually makes a point of ignoring him to the best of his ability, he steps in when he hears Naruto’s idea of a ‘great place to train’ is inside the Nara compound. 

The Nara may be relatively relaxed compared to the other clans, but training inside clan grounds without explicit permission is just a bad idea all around.

When he tells Naruto that, the seven-year-old turns bright red before calling him an idiot and running off.

And to be honest, Takahiro is beginning to agree with him.

He made a deliberate choice not to care. And yet, here he is, trying to keep Naruto from doing anything too stupid. 

It’s… complicated, in a perverse kind of way. Nothing forces Takahiro to care for Naruto - nothing except for his own conscience. He isn’t quite sure whether it’s because he used to be an adult or conversely, because he’s now a child, but the more he sees and the more he hears, he can’t quite match the image of ‘Naruto’ with ‘monster’. The pranks don’t help, but it’s made worse by how much Naruto obviously cares - perhaps even more than everyone else.

But that doesn’t mean Takahiro can just ignore what he knows.

If a ‘seven-year-old Naruto’ is what he sees during the day, a ‘monster Naruto’ is what he sees at night. A part of his mind - the same part that still insists that the world he lives in doesn’t really exist - whispers to him as he’s trying to fall asleep. 

_There’s a reason everyone avoids him_ , it points out, quiet and disturbingly even. _You heard what Katsumi-sensei said._

Despite what he knows ( _what he thinks he knows_ ) Takahiro isn’t scared of becoming another body added to the list of people the Kyuubi killed. He should know. He checked after all.

The Naka river flows swift and deep in early dawn, as he sits on the edge of the ravine, feet dangling, leaning forward far too much to be considered safe. He can’t see the river itself, not when the ravine is deep and the only light to see by is what comes from the moon, half-hidden behind clouds, but he can still hear it roar as it rushes beneath his feet.

He feels nothing.

He isn’t afraid of dying. It’s not his own safety that keeps him from apologizing to Naruto. It’s the thought that maybe people were right, that maybe Naruto deserved to be ostracized, that stays his hand. 

But should it?

Once, while Shisui was helping Takahiro work on an essay for the academy, he’d asked him a question.

“Say, if there’s this really bad person who did really bad stuff in his life using something that’s kind of common among some people, would it be right to hate those other people for what he did? Or for what they could do as well?” 

Takahiro paused and looked up at the older boy. “Is this about Madara and the Uchihas?”

Shisui blinked. “I thought you didn’t know history.”

Takahiro tapped the end of his pencil on his textbook.

“Huh. Good to know you’re actually studying now.”

“Itachi made me.”

Shisui let out a snort before he leaned forward to place his elbow on the table and cup his chin in his hand. “So?”

“So what?”

“So what’s your answer?”

As far as Shisui knew, Takahiro’s interactions with other people were minimal, so he had absolutely no idea why Shisui was asking him, a _nine-year-old_ , but when he tried to ignore him and continue working on his essay, Shisui snatched his pencil out of his hand.

“Nope,” he said cheerfully as he twirled the pencil around his fingers as if it were a kunai. “Not until you answer.”

“Can’t you ask someone else?”

“But I want to hear what Taka-chan thinks!”

Takahiro scowled. Itachi had threatened to sic Sasuke on him if he didn’t finish that essay by the time they got back from ‘family training time’, so he _needed his pencil back_. He’d have preferred that Shisui be helpful for once, but seeing as that was rather unlikely...

“To a point.”

Shisui tilted his head to the side. “Elaborate?”

“The people who were hurt by Madara,” he wasn’t quite sure Shisui really was talking about Madara or not, but it seemed the most likely, “have a right to hate him. They also have a right to be wary of other Sharingan users.”

“And people who weren’t hurt by him? Like, say, you or me?”

“Then they don’t have a right to hate. They can still be wary, but hating someone who never did anything to you is stupid.”

Shisui hummed. “But what about cases where it’s hard to tell whether you were hurt by that person or not? Some people could argue that everyone in Konoha, including future generations thousands of years from now, was hurt by Madara.”

That was... a good point, but Takahiro wasn’t much interested in arguing the deeper points of philosophy or whatever it was Shisui wanted to talk about.

“I don’t know, and I don’t care. Now give me my pencil back.”

Takahiro said people who weren’t affected by someone’s actions didn’t have the right to hate them - that even if they deserved to be hated, that didn’t give the right to hate to anyone willy nilly. Wouldn’t the same apply to rejection? Does he have a right to reject Naruto when the Kyuubi never did anything to Takahiro - to _him_ , not whoever once may have inhabited this body? 

He doesn’t know. If he’s being more honest, he doesn’t think so.

Naruto continues to play ridiculous pranks and follow Takahiro around, making inane statements about something or other, so most days all of his attention is focused on ignoring the younger boy to the best of his abilities. He’s getting rather good at it, and now it’s almost a habit to scan an area for the ever-present yellow and proceed to shut it out once he sees where it is.

It might be because he’s been so focused on _yellow_ that he has completely forgotten about _black_.

In his defence, nearly a third of Konoha’s population has black hair. He can’t possibly keep track of all of them.

The only warning he gets before something heavy slams into his back, is a high-pitched squeal coming from some ways behind him.

“You!” a voice shouts in Takahiro’s ear. Arms wrap around Takahiro’s neck even as he staggers under the weight and flails. 

“Sasuke?” he manages to choke out - a split second before arms tighten alarmingly around his neck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have mixed feelings about this chapter; on one hand, there's the fiasco with Naruto... but on the other, Sasuke's back!


	7. Chapter 7

“Why are you ignoring me?” Sasuke demands, and the only reason Takahiro doesn’t laugh - because he’s ignoring _Naruto_ at the moment, not Sasuke - is that he can barely breathe with how tightly Sasuke is holding on to him.

“It’s not fair,” Sasuke seethes while Takahiro tries to pry him off. “You don’t ignore Naruto-” _he’s_ trying _to - it’s not Takahiro’s fault Naruto sometimes has the intelligence and self-preservation instincts of a canned lemming,_ “-but you’re ignoring _me_. Why? He doesn’t do anything better than I do, does he? He’s stupid. So are you, actually, but he’s even stupider.”

Takahiro pats at Sasuke’s arm, not quite frantically, but still with more urgency than he’d like. Sasuke’s grip loosens a fraction and Takahiro manages to get him to move so his wrist isn’t quite digging into his windpipe anymore.

“I’m not ignoring you.” 

The first thing that comes out of his lips after months is Sasuke’s name. The second is a lie. 

Sasuke isn’t pleased by that. 

He scoffs and his hands twitch threateningly. “You only got away with it for so long because of Aniki,” he tells Takahiro, his voice serious even as his feet don’t quite brush the ground. “He said we needed to give you time but that doesn’t make sense because you’re talking to _Naruto_. If you really needed time alone, why are you talking with the idiot?”

“I don’t-” 

Sasuke kicks his feet, hitting Takahiro’s calf. “You do,” he says and kicks Takahiro again for good measure. “You’re always talking with him! I’ve seen you after school, following him around like, like you’re his _mother_. Why?”

Takahiro shifts slightly to adjust to the change in balance when Sasuke swung his foot. This makes Sasuke tighten his hold around Takahiro’s neck automatically, and he winces when the younger boy’s hold grows a bit too tight once more. His neck hurts, as does his back, and his leg throbs from when Sasuke’s sandal made contact - but what bothers him the most is the fact that there are too many people around. 

Most of his classmates couldn’t care less, but Sasuke’s classmates are a completely different matter. They gawk and snicker, and it feels too much like he’s being put on display. Takahiro wants to leave but he can’t, not when Sasuke’s attached to him like a leech and doesn’t look like he intends to let go of him anytime soon. 

It might have been better if the crowd was dispersing, but no. It’s growing. There are those girls who gave him the only warning he had before Sasuke jumped on him, and the Nara and Akimichi heirs stroll over like Takahiro’s prime entertainment. Some obviously civilian born children stare from the sidelines and there are a couple more he can see out of the corner of his eyes, though he can’t quite tell exactly who they are, not from where he’s standing, and- 

Now that he’s thinking about it, isn’t-

“Leave him alone!”

Something slams into both Takahiro and Sasuke from behind and they go sprawling. 

Tears spring to Takahiro’s eyes when his face hits the ground. Thankfully, the grass manages to cushion his fall and nothing seems to be broken or bleeding. It still hurts, though, and he scrambles to his feet, fingers gingerly poking at the side of his nose. He can hear Sasuke let loose a random jumble of words that would upset Itachi, half of which Takahiro is fairly sure Sasuke learned from Shisui and the other half he thinks Sasuke picked up on the streets but doesn’t quite know what they mean because he’s using them in a way that doesn’t quite make sense.

“Naruto-” Takahiro tries to say, but Naruto’s voice is louder.

“Leave Takahiro-nii alone!” Naruto shouts and he raises his fists. “If you bother him I’ll beat you up y’know!”

He- what?

“You?” 

While Takahiro is trying to wrap his mind around the fact that, for some reason, Naruto seems to think Sasuke was - bullying him? He isn’t quite sure - Sasuke very deliberately straightens from the kata he’d fallen into and loosens his fists even as he tosses his head back to look down at Naruto. “Like you could even if you tried, idiot. You don’t even know how to hit right.”

“I do-”

“Yeah, Sasuke-kun’s much better than you!” one of the girls watching on the sidelines pipes up and a few of her friends chime in their agreement. 

Takahiro wants to gag each and every one of them - partially because Naruto falters visibly and the boy does not need someone to step on his already low self-esteem, but mostly because that’s not what you’re supposed to say when a fight is brewing.

“Naruto-” he tries again because he knows Naruto won’t take kindly to such an insult to his pride, but it’s too late. 

Naruto lets out a sound that’s too high-pitched and squeaky to be called a war-cry, but he tries. He throws himself at Sasuke, his balance off and reach too short, and Sasuke simply takes a step to the left. Naruto’s fist falls short by more than a foot and he trips over his own feet.

“Pathetic,” Sasuke scoffs. 

“Sasuke-kun’s so cool.”

“Did you see that? He dodged so easily!”

“God, I knew Naruto was bad but he’s really awful.”

The triumphant look on Sasuke’s face morphs into something more uncomfortable and he shifts his feet slightly as if he wants to take a step forward but decides against it at the last second. It’s clear he never meant to humiliate Naruto - it was just second nature for him to fight and fight _well_ \- except their audience never got the memo and Naruto was an easy target.

Takahiro is still rather unimpressed.

“Sasuke,” he says, voice flat and lips turned down. The younger boy’s eyes snap towards him, and for a second, Sasuke looks ashamed. It quickly twists into mulish petulance, however, and he scowls. 

“It’s true though,” he says, his voice loud and carrying. “He’s at the bottom of our class for a reason.”

“Shut up!” Naruto has risen to his feet once more, and he’s standing a couple of feet away. He’s trying to copy one of the katas they learn in the academy early on, but even Takahiro can tell his form is sloppy. In a spar, it’s clear Sasuke would win, and quite easily at that. 

In a _spar_. This isn’t a friendly, mediated spar with rules.

“The only reason why you’re good at stuff is ‘cause your brother teaches you, y’know!” Naruto shouts and Takahiro stiffens. He really doesn’t like where this is going- “Not like you’re ever going to be as good as him if you always need help, y’know!”

A deep ugly flush rises in Sasuke’s neck and ears, and before Takahiro can so much as take a step forward, he lunges at Naruto with all the grace of a raging forest fire. Naruto welcomes him with a punch to his face, which Sasuke takes in favour of kneeing Naruto in the stomach and soon, the fight devolves into an all-out brawl.

“Whoo!” a boy, Inuzuka if Takahiro is correct and those are clan markings on his cheeks, shouts as he jumps up and down a safe distance away. “Fight!”

 _Why_ , is the only thing Takahiro can think of with any semblance of coherency as he stares as Naruto and Sasuke roll around on the ground. Somehow, sometime while he’s been staring in horror, Sasuke has managed to grab a fistful of Naruto’s hair and yanks, and Naruto bites down onto Sasuke’s shoulder. Sasuke lets out a sound that can only be called a shriek before he rips out a handful of yellow strands and tries to shove his hand into Naruto’s mouth. He fails at getting his fist through, but that hardly matters when Naruto’s teeth clamp down on his fingers anyway. 

When Naruto bites Sasuke’s fingers hard enough to draw blood and Sasuke tries to poke out Naruto’s eyes in retaliation, Takahiro has had enough.

“Get a teacher,” he snaps at no one in particular, and two children - an Aburame and most likely a civilian born - run towards the building. He takes a few steps forward intent on stopping the fight even though he doesn’t quite know how.

Should he shout? Yell? Would they even be able to hear him? God, why does it have to be him - couldn’t it have been someone else? 

“Naruto, Sasuke,” Takahiro calls out, trying his best to sound authoritative but it comes out a bit too much like a plea. “Stop that.”

Neither of them even bother to look in his direction.

Goddamnit.

“Naruto,” he tries again, hoping the other boy would be at least a little more willing to listen than Sasuke, but it doesn’t work. Sasuke jabs his fingers at Naruto’s face, and though, thankfully, he misses his eyes, his nails scrape against Naruto’s forehead and he starts bleeding.

“Sasuke!”

Naruto lets out a garbled shout - he still hasn’t let go of Sasuke’s hand - and tries to punch Sasuke in the face. He misses and clips Sasuke’s shoulder instead. Sasuke grabs a handful of dirt and throws it into Naruto’s eyes, finally making the other boy let go with a howl and they roll away from each other.

Seeing his chance, Takahiro lunges forward and manages to grab the back of Sasuke’s collar before he can throw himself at Naruto once more.

“I swear if you don’t stop right now, I’m getting your brother,” Takahiro snarls as he digs his heels into the ground. “Don’t you dare!” he snaps when Naruto starts running forward, his fists raised. 

Naruto skids to a stop but during the split-second Takahiro was distracted, Sasuke breaks himself free from Takahiro’s grip and lunges at Naruto once more. 

“For fuck's sake-” Takahiro snarls as he takes a step forward - if he lets them kill each other Itachi and Katsumi-sensei will be so very disappointed - but at that very instant, Naruto manages to kick Sasuke’s foot out from underneath him, and they both fall.

Right onto Takahiro.

He tips back - his hands reach out automatically to grab at anything to keep from falling, but the only thing his fingers wrap around is Sasuke’s shirt and Sasuke is falling right alongside him. It happens so _quickly_ \- one second he’s falling and the next he’s on the ground, blinking up at the terrified faces of Sasuke and Naruto staring down at him.

“Takahiro-nii!” Naruto cries out even as snot drips down his nose and tears well up in his eyes.

“Wha-” Takahiro tries to say but then an unfamiliar face appears and pushes both boys out of the way.

“Takahiro-kun?” When Takahiro tries to sit up, the young man - more teenager than man, really - holds out a hand to keep him still. “Do you remember what happened?”

Yes. The idiots got into a fight, he decided to be stupid and stepped in, they fell on him and - judging by the looks on everyone’s faces - he hit his head and got knocked out.

What actually comes out of his mouth is, “I don’t know you.”

“Right,” says the teen. “Let’s take you to the hospital.”

"Wait, no- I don't need the hospital," Takahiro tries to say, but the teen just frowns at him and much to Takahiro’s horror, slips his arms under Takahiro’s knees and shoulders. 

"I can walk!" Takahiro sqwacks.

“Better to be safe," the teen tells him as he picks him up and practically cradles him against his chest. It's to keep his head from shaking too much while moving, Takahiro knows. That doesn't mean it's any less embarrassing. "Thank you, Shino, Akashi. Could one of you get Mizuki-sensei and- who's your instructor?" The last part is directed at Takahiro.

"Katsumi-sensei, Seo Katsumi- but I don't need a hospital. I remember everything."

“Right. One of you go to the teachers’ lounge and tell Katsumi-sensei his student is in the hospital with a minor head injury.”

“I don’t need a hospital,” Takahiro repeats once more, just in case the instructor didn’t hear him the first time. 

"Aniki said hitting your head hard enough could kill you," Sasuke argues and Naruto’s already white face turns a shade paler. 

"Takahiro-nii's going to _die_?" he squeaks, blue eyes round and wide, before he throws himself forward to cling at the shirt of the man holding Takahiro. "Iruka-sensei! You can't let Takahiro-nii die y’know!"

The teen - Iruka - tenses and takes half a step back away from Naruto before he stops himself. To his credit, his voice stays steady and professional when he speaks, even though Takahiro can literally feel his unease. “He won’t die,” he tells Naruto, a bit clipped but when Naruto stares up at him, clearly frightened and anxious, he softens. “Er, you remember that time Shinji broke his finger when he fell wrong, don’t you? Students get hurt all the time during spars - a little fall like this won’t kill him. He’s stronger than that, isn’t he?”

Naruto looks relieved for an entirety of two seconds before Sasuke ruins it.

“Takahiro is really, really weak though.”

And Naruto looks horrified again.

“He’ll be fine,” Iruka says loudly before Naruto can open his mouth. “He just needs a quick scan by a medic - which is only going to happen if you let me leave, you know.”

Immediately Naruto jumps back, pulling his hands behind his back. “You go ahead, Iruka-sensei,” he says quickly. “We’ll stay here and wait for you to come back y’know!”

“Actually,” says Iruka. There’s something in his voice, something almost unpleasantly pleasant, that makes Takahiro look up at him warily. “You’ll be coming to the hospital as well. When Mizuki-sensei arrives, I want you to tell him that the two of you - yes, you too Sasuke-kun - are to come with him to the hospital. And that your guardians are to be notified of what happened today.”

“But-!”

“No arguments.” Iruka’s voice is firm when he speaks over Sasuke’s protest. “Don’t think I don’t notice the way you’re holding your wrist, Sasuke-kun. It might not be as serious, but both of you need to get looked over as well. When Mizuki-sensei comes, I expect you to tell him what happened, got it?”

“Yes, sensei,” mutters Naruto while Sasuke scowls. 

“Why do my parents have to know?” he demands. “Can’t you just-”

“I said no arguments,” Iruka cuts in. “And that’s final.”

It obviously isn’t ‘final’ for Sasuke, but Iruka turns and Takahiro has to shut his eyes against the sudden bout of nausea when Iruka jumps onto the roof of the nearest building.

“Sorry,” Iruka’s voice comes from somewhere above him. “It’s only going to take a couple of minutes.”

Takahiro was under the impression you weren’t supposed to shake someone who might be concussed. Either Iruka doesn’t know that - unlikely since Takahiro is pretty sure you had to be at least chuunin to teach at the academy and what kind of chuunin doesn’t know basic first aid - or Takahiro is just overreacting to what is actually a very smooth ride. 

Overreacting or not, that doesn’t change the fact that it’s a very unpleasant experience. Takahiro keeps his eyes shut tight, his lips pressed firmly together, and reminds himself the hospital is only twenty minutes away from the academy by civilian standards which means they should be arriving any second now.

When they do, they’re waved into an empty room by a civilian nurse, and just a couple of minutes later, a medic arrives.

“Really,” says the young woman as she closes the door behind her. “I just got off the academy shift yesterday - did you have to bring him to me?”

“I’m sorry, but-” Iruka shuts his mouth when the medic clicks her tongue.

“Don’t bother with the excuses,” she says as she gestures for Takahiro to sit on the edge of the bed in the middle of the room. “The quicker we get this over with, the better,” she mutters before she frowns down at Takahiro. “So. What’s the injury?”

“A possible concussion,” says Iruka from where he’s hovering by an empty chair. “He hit his head.”

“Lovely. You can sit, you know,” the medic says dryly, before she turns back to face Takahiro. “I’ll be running a few tests to check if you actually have a concussion or not. Having foreign chakra run through your brain might feel a bit different from normal healing, but try not to fight it.”

Takahiro grimaces but he stays still as the medic places a hand on his forehead. Soon enough a cool sensation starts from around the area and spreads - sometimes, he wonders if the chakra pathways the Hyuuga are able to see are less like pathways and more like an intricate spider web, woven out of chakra. It certainly feels that way.

“Looks like a minor concussion,” the medic murmurs and looks up to face Iruka. “Takahiro’s a civilian kid, isn’t he? I can’t heal him without his guardian’s permission, not outside of the academy grounds.”

Iruka jerks up from where he’s finally taken a seat, and taps his fingers against his knee. “His academy instructor should be arriving any second now.”

“It’s not school hours,” the medic points out. “I need the orphanage matron’s permission not Katsumi’s.”

“It… happened at the academy?”

“Then you should have taken him to the medic stationed there, not to the hospital.”

“The medic isn’t always available after the school day is over,” Iruka reminds her. “I didn’t have a choice.”

The medic frowns. “Who’s the medic?”

“Yamamoto Hayato. He always leaves the second class is over.”

“I’ll talk to him about staying until all the students have left school grounds,” the medic promises. “But I can’t use medical chakra on the kid until I have his guardian’s permission. Since it’s relatively minor, he could just sleep it off. Just have someone keep an eye on him for the next two days or so, and he’ll be fine. You know the drill.”

“Well- yes, but-”

“Takahiro-kun?” 

The door opens and Katsumi-sensei enters. He takes one sweeping look over the room, before he strides over to Takahiro’s side. 

“Report,” he barks out, and even as Takahiro blinks in surprise, both the medic and Iruka snap to attention.

“There was an incident at the academy gates after class was over,” Iruka starts. “I don’t know why, but Uzumaki and Sasuke were fighting and Takahiro got caught in the crossfire. From what I managed to gather, he tried to keep the two from fighting, fell, and hit his head.”

“He has a minor concussion,” the medic supplies when Katsumi-sensei glances at her. “Nothing serious - he should be fine even without using medical jutsu.”

“I have full authority over anything regarding Takahiro-kun’s health-” _since when?_ “-so if you would, I’d appreciate it if you fully healed him now, Nozomi-san.”

The medic hesitates, but apparently Katsumi-sensei is rather highly considered by his colleagues, because she doesn’t try to argue. After the initial hesitation, she raises her hand once more and places it on Takahiro’s head.

Her chakra spreads through him. The sensation is similar to what he experienced just before, but this time, it’s more invasive. Takahiro grimaces and Katsumi-sensei places a hand on his shoulder.

“Just a little more,” he murmurs. “You’ve been healed by a medic before, haven’t you?”

“Once,” says Takahiro, if only to take his mind off the feeling of something poking around in his brain. “Someone broke my finger during a spar.”

“That would be Emi-chan. She apologized afterwards, don’t you remember?”

Kind of. Maybe. He isn’t quite sure who Emi’s supposed to be, but he does remember it hurt like hell.

He shrugs and Katsumi-sensei sighs. “You need to learn your classmates’ names before you graduate, Takahiro-kun. At the very least.”

“I know their names,” Takahiro lies and Katsumi-sensei looks down at him in clear amusement.

“Of course you do. Remember - by the time you graduate, at the very least.”

Before Takahiro can protest - or not, he isn’t quite sure what he would have said in response to that - Nozomi takes her hand off of Takahiro’s head. 

“All done,” she says as she shakes her hand out a bit. “There shouldn’t be any side-effects at all, so you don’t need to worry about anything.”

“Thank you,” says Katsumi-sensei, his hand still a warm solid presence on Takahiro’s shoulder.

“No problem,” says Nozomi with a shrug. “I have to leave - the hospital’s chronically understaffed as it is, and I’ve spent enough time looking over the kid - so you can see yourselves out.”

“Of course,” says Katsumi-sensei.

Nozomi nods before she leaves without much fanfare, passing by Iruka who gets an exasperated sigh when he opens the door for her with an awkward smile. Just seconds after she steps out, two small figures rush into the room.

“Takahiro-nii!” cries out Naruto. He nearly slams into Takahiro, but Katsumi-sensei grabs him before he can actually jump. Completely unphased, Naruto goes on shouting as he dangles in Katsumi-sensei’s grip. “Mizuki-sensei said you could be dead!”

“He was obviously lying, stupid.” Sasuke pushes forward and looks over Takahiro from head to toe. “See? He’s fine. Who dies from falling?”

“You’re the one who said people could die from hitting their heads! Unless your brother was lying, y’know!”

“Aniki wasn’t lying! Take that back!”

“Kids!” A man with shoulder-length bluish-white hair, whom Takahiro assumes to be Mizuki-sensei sticks his head into the doorway. “No fighting! Remember what I said about staying quiet in the hospital?”

Both Naruto and Sasuke’s eyes widen before they abruptly go silent, which is rather unfair since it took Takahiro a literal concussion to get them to shut up.

“Mizuki?” Iruka glances between Naruto and the man. 

“Thought it would be best to let them know the possible consequences of fighting without supervision,” says Mizuki cheerfully. “I had the kids get looked over by a medic - Sasuke had a sprained wrist and Naruto got a nasty cut on his forehead, but everything else was relatively minor and was fixed easily. I also had a messenger notify the Uchiha of what happened. Do you need anything else?”

“No, that’s fine.” Iruka shakes his head. “Thanks.”

“Alright then. If you need me, I’ll be at the academy.”

Mizuki leaves and Takahiro is left with Katsumi-sensei standing - looming, really - beside him, Iruka standing awkwardly by the door, and Naruto and Sasuke hovering in front of him, one quite blatantly while the other pretends he’s doing anything but.

“So,” says Naruto after a beat. “You’re not going to die?”

“I already said so, stupid.”

“Who asked you-”

“Naruto! Sasuke!” Iruka barks out and Takahiro gives a start. Katsumi-sensei’s hand tightens momentarily before his grip loosens. “Really? After Mizuki-sensei just told you not to fight?” 

Once more they both fall silent - again, so very unfair - but neither looks particularly happy. Naruto is pouting rather spectacularly as his eyes narrow and he crosses his arms, while Sasuke scowls and shoves both hands into his pockets. They’re not fighting, not technically, but it’s clear the only thing that’s keeping them from going at each others’ throats once more, is the fact that they’re at the hospital. Not to mention Katsumi-sensei and Iruka are standing right there.

Iruka sighs and rubs his temples. “Why were you two fighting in the first place?” 

“The bastard was-!”

“The idiot just-!”

“One at a time!”

“He-!”

“Sasuke-!”

“Oh god.” Takahiro barely catches Iruka’s mutter through the sound of two seven-year-olds shouting at the top of their lungs, trying to speak over each other to get heard. 

He knows Nozomi healed his concussion and that any leftover feeling of vertigo and nausea was probably just his imagination, but he can’t help but grimace and rub at the side of his head at the noise. His head aches - it feels like something is squeezing his brain from inside his skull. He gets headaches regularly, but for some reason, it’s different this time. Less ‘just there’ and more very, very obvious and annoying.

Katsumi-sensei notices (he always does) and gently presses his fingers against Takahiro’s scalp. Takahiro involuntarily leans back into his touch - it should be awkward and uncomfortable, but by now Katsumi-sensei has seen him at his worst. There’s hardly anything he could do to make a worse impression.

So, he closes his eyes and tries to pretend he can’t hear the two children shouting at the top of their lungs right across him.

“Kids!” Takahiro shrinks back. Iruka is _loud_ when he chooses to be, but thankfully, the teen manages to get the two to shut up. “No arguing. No one’s allowed to talk until I say so, got it?”

“Am I included, Iruka-sensei?”

Takahiro’s eyes snap open and he stares at the woman standing in the doorway. He knows he’s never seen her before (unlike the way he’s never quite sure if any child his age is actually a stranger or just someone he can’t remember) because she isn’t someone he’d forget easily. 

The woman is pretty - no, she’s beautiful, in a way that is memorable. 

She shouldn’t stand out - she isn’t loud, isn’t wearing anything particularly eye-catching - and yet, she demands their attention, in the same way flickering flames or deep churning waters draws one’s eyes. Everything about her is graceful and restrained, and Takahiro feels himself stiffen when black eyes flicker in his direction.

If Katsumi-sensei with his pink eyes and scars from kunai and the like felt unnatural to Takahiro, the Uchiha matriarch (because that’s the only person she could be) is someone who wouldn’t have felt out of place in his world from before, and yet, somehow manages to stay just as foreign.

It’s unnerving.

“No, of course not, Mikoto-sama.” Iruka lowers his head just so, and Uchiha Mikoto gives him a small smile with just the perfect upturn of her lips.

“Sasuke?” she says, and the boy immediately jumps up and scurries over to his mother.

“He started it!”

“No, I didn’t!”

Mikoto hasn’t even asked what has happened yet, but Sasuke is already pointing metaphorical fingers. If he’d been raised just slightly less proper, Takahiro imagines Sasuke would have been pulling on his mother’s sleeve as he spoke.

“Shush,” Mikoto murmurs and Sasuke falls silent with a sullen pout. “Iruka-sensei?”

“Sasuke sprained his wrist along with sustaining a couple of minor cuts and bruises. They’ve all been looked over by a medic,” says Iruka. “He’s really only here because, well, he and Naruto got into a fight and gave another student a concussion that landed him in the hospital. We haven’t managed to find out the specifics yet, seeing as Takahiro-kun has only just been looked at.”

Mikoto’s eyes glance towards Takahiro once more, and he tenses.

“A fight?” she repeats and this time Katsumi-sensei answers. Or rather, dumps the responsibility onto Takahiro.

“Can you tell us what happened, Takahiro-kun?” he asks and Takahiro resists the urge to twitch.

“Sasuke caught me as I was leaving the academy. Naruto mistook that as him… being aggressive. Sasuke was rude and riled him up, a couple of the students around them chimed in and made things worse, Naruto responded in kind, and they started fighting. I tried to get them to stop, but ended up falling and hitting my head instead.”

“‘Caught’ you?”

His nails dig into his palms. 

“He’s being stupid,” Sasuke speaks up when Takahiro stays silent for a couple of seconds too long. 

“Sasuke,” Mikoto reprimands, but Sasuke isn’t finished.

“Ever since- ever since Shisui-nii died he’s been avoiding us, though! And it’s just me and Aniki! He isn’t avoiding the idiot-”

“Hey!”

“-but we were his friends longer and it’s like he only talked to us because of Shisui and it’s making Aniki sad and that’s _unfair!_ ”

Takahiro fingers clench. “I’m not-”

“Liar!” Sasuke stomps his foot and Takahiro’s mouth snaps shut. It’s his nails that are on the verge of breaking skin, but the copper tang of blood fills his mouth. “You keep running away! Every time we tried to talk to you you ignored us and left and you won’t talk to us even though we’re there every morning and it’s stupid because Aniki said you just needed more time but it’s been _months_ and Aniki and I knew Shisui-nii longer than you did so you’re not supposed to be sadder than we are but you act like you are and you’re using it as an excuse to stop talking to us and-”

“Sasuke.” 

Mikoto’s voice, soft but firm, cuts into Sasuke’s tirade and he visibly swallows back his words. His lips are pressed in a thin line that won’t stop wobbling, and Takahiro’s knuckles are white as he stares down at them.

He’s right. Sasuke’s right. Takahiro was selfish. 

He acts like he’s an adult, like he’s some kind of martyr when it comes to taking care of Naruto, but he doesn’t even do that and what kind of adult is he if he wallows in self-pity while Sasuke and Itachi (god, _Itachi_ \- he’s literally only twelve years old and Takahiro has been treating him like he’s an adult) try to move on, and Takahiro is supposed to be better than this. He promised himself he’d be better than this but- it’s not the same, is it? Sasuke, Itachi - they have everyone else, and all Takahiro had was Shisui- but that’s not true either. He had Sasuke, Itachi, Katsumi-sensei, even Naruto - if only he’d been less of an idiot, less- less _useless_ and more-

A soft hand brushes against his cheek and Takahiro flinches back.

“I apologize on behalf of my son.”

Mikoto’s voice gently closes the dam of thoughts flooding through his mind. Her hand drifts down to carefully unfurl his fingers.

They’ve left marks. None that are permanent. 

He feels like they should have. 

“Grief acts in different ways,” she murmurs the words as if they’re for Takahiro’s ears only even though commonsense tells him there’s no way Iruka and Katsumi-sensei, at the very least, won’t be able to hear her. “There is nothing wrong with taking your time to recover, as long as you do.”

‘I’m sorry,’ Takahiro wants to say, because he isn’t. He isn’t ‘taking his time’. He just… isn’t.

He doesn’t say anything.

Mikoto rises to her feet from where she had been crouched down before him. Katsumi-sensei’s fingers loosen a bit around Takahiro’s shoulders.

“I think,” says Mikoto lightly. “Uzumaki-san and my son should apologize to each other and Murakami-san as well. Don’t you agree, Iruka-sensei, Katsumi-sensei?”

“Of course,” says Iruka immediately. “Naruto, Sasuke?”

“I was only trying to help Takahiro-nii y’know,” Naruto tries to protest, but he quickly shuts up when Iruka levels an irritated glance in his direction.

“You hurt a classmate with the intention of hurting him, Naruto. No matter what happens, intending to hurt a friend is never acceptable.

“Oh.” Naruto’s shoulders drop and he sneaks a glance at Sasuke, who’s still looking mutinous but it’s less directed at Naruto and more towards Takahiro. “Sorry ‘bout that, y’know.”

For a second, it looks like Sasuke isn’t going to return his apology, but Mikoto taps Sasuke lightly on the shoulder and Sasuke shoves his hands in his pockets as he scowls down at the floor.

“Fine,” he snaps just before Naruto actually bursts. “Sorry.”

Mikoto lets out a small sigh that makes Sasuke flinch just a bit. “And to Murakami-san, children.”

Both boys turn to look at Takahiro, still sitting on the hospital bed, and their faces turn a mix of sheepish and guilty. 

“Sorry for giving you a con- con-”

“Concussion,” Iruka mutters out of the corner of his mouth.

“Yeah. That. Sorry, y’know.”

“I’m sorry too- but you’re still really, really weak.”

“Sasuke.”

“It’s true, though!” Sasuke insists despite his mother’s warning. “Takahiro’s supposed to be older than us but he fell! And ended up in the hospital! That’s really, really stupid!”

“Yeah!” 

Takahiro stares in disbelief as Naruto bobs his head up and down.

“Not stupid ‘cause that’s just mean, but you are kind of, uh, y’know.” He sounds genuinely apologetic when he looks at Takahiro which makes things all the worse. 

He can’t really argue against it, though.

“So,” he says blandly instead. 

“So you need to train,” says Sasuke, which is admittedly a logical conclusion. “With me and Aniki.” And that is not.

“And me too, y’know!”

“I don’t-” Takahiro tries to argue but he isn’t given a chance.

“What a wonderful idea,” says Mikoto before either Takahiro - or Sasuke, who looks absolutely incensed at the thought that Naruto was trying to butt his way into ‘their’ training session - can protest. “In a week, then?” 

“Yeah!”

“No one asked you, stupid. Besides, you’re not invited!”

“Uzumaki-san is welcome as well.”

“See! Your mom says it’s fine - she’s a lot more cooler than you, y’know!”

“Kaa-san!”

Naruto and Sasuke begin to bicker, and Iruka joins in the fray, shouting to be heard above the din. Mikoto stands there by their side, smiling with her hands folded daintily on top of each other as if she hadn’t just dropped a bomb on Takahiro’s head.

Takahiro turns to the only person who might listen to him.

“I can’t,” he tells Katsumi-sensei, panic rising in his chest as Naruto and Sasuke argue about who was better at _real_ fighting, not the sparring taught at the academy. 

Takahiro isn’t ready. 

“I think it’s a good idea,” says Katsumi-sensei.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I have bad news. School's started, it turns out I'm busier than I thought I'd be, and I've run out of pre-written and edited chapters. So, I'm thinking of either taking a hiatus till winter break or changing my non-official update schedule to once every two weeks (or a month, depending on whether the rest of the semester turns out to be as busy as this first week). I haven't quite decided what to do yet (any preferences?), but I just wanted to let people know so no one wonders where I've gone next week. Here's to hoping I can keep writing regularly :)


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